■■■■■ ■■■■ , 



THE 

Second Coming of Christ 



CONSIDERED IN ITS RELATION TO 



THE MILLENNIUM, THE RESURRECTION, 
AND THE JUDGMENT. 

BY 

/ 

S. M. MERRILL, D. D., 

BISHOP OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



'.'^ OF CO,v^^ 

Mo. siM£d 

. ^ 1879. .<fc 



CINCINNATI: * - 

HITCHCOCK AND WALDEN. 
NEW YORK: PHILLIPS & HUNT. 
1879. 

T 



r ' 



Copyright by 
HITCHCOCK & WALDEN, 
1879. 




PREFACE. 



HE theme of this volume has occupied 



more or less of the thought of the 
Church ever since the Savior ascended to 
heaven, and will receive attention till he 
returns. 

There are many reasons why it should 
be kept prominently before the people. It 
is within itself intensely interesting as well as 
important, and its relation to the doctrines 
of probation and future judgment and eter- 
nal retributions invests it with a grandeur and 
solemnity of transcendent impressiveness. 

I have written, not because I wished to 
advance any strange- theory, nor because of 
any belief that light had been given me that 
others do not possess, but because of a con- 
viction that a plain treatment of the subject 
at this time would be useful, and that such a 




4 PREFACE. 

grouping of thoughts as is here presented 
would prove helpful to some who need 
assistance. 

My first intention was carefully to sift the 
sayings of others, and to support the material 
positions taken by the opinions of men emi- 
nent as exegetes and critics, so as to give 
the reader a digest of the literature of the 
subject; but it soon became evident that 
such a course would swell the volume be- 
yond the limits I determined to observe, and 
the thought was abandoned and succeeded by 
a purpose to appeal only to the supreme 
authority — the Word of God. 

My desire was to make the treatise expos- 
itory, rather than controversial. In this re- 
spect I have not altogether succeeded. And 
yet it is hoped that the controversial spirit 
has not gained such an ascendency as to 
weaken the sense of obligation to deal fairly 
with opposing opinions. 

In some instances I have ventured to depart 



PREFACE. 5 

from the expositions given by able men whose 
doctrinal positions substantially agree with 
my own. My reliance in such cases is upon 
the soundness of the arguments adduced. 
I have simply followed my own convictions, 
and endeavored to submit the subject to the 
the reader just as it lies in my own mind. 
Self-denial has been required to avoid mak- 
ing a larger book. 

Hoping it may be the means of saving 
some from falling into erratic notions, and of 
confirming the wavering in the truth, and 
of stirring up in others a profounder sense 
of accountability to God in a coming day, 
I prayerfully send this volume forth upon its 
mission, bespeaking for it as much of candor 
in its perusal as has been observed in its 
preparation. 

S. M. M. 

Chicago, January, 1879. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. Theories, • 9 

II. Christ Coming in his Kingdom, . . 18 

III. The Personal Coming, .... 34 

IV. The Destruction of Jerusalem, . ? 46 
V. The End of the World, .... 65 

VI. After the Tribulation, . . . 82 

VII. This Generation, 108 

VIII. The Sheep and Goats, . . . . 123 
IX. Restoration of the Jews, . . . .137 
X. The Millennium, . . . . . 152 
XI. The Coming at the Resurrection, . .173 
XII. Theories of the Resurrection, . . 186 

XIII. Resurrection and Judgment, . . . 204 

XIV. Christ's Coming at the Judgment, . 216 
XV. Judgment after Death, .... 236 

XVI. The Conflagration, .... 260 



THE 



Second Coming of Christ. 



Chapter I. 

THEORIES. 
HE Second Coming of Christ is his com- 



ing into the sight of men on earth, so 
that his presence may be known and felt as 
sensibly as when he lived in Galilee or 
walked about in Judea. But it does not 
follow that he must again live on the earth, 
as a man, subject to the laws of human life, 
or again take part in the privations and suf- 
ferings, or the joys and pleasures, that make 
up the sum of human experience and of 
earthly discipline. 

His Second Coming is for another pur- 
pose than that which once brought him into 
the sphere of our probational living. Then 
he came to meet the covenant obligations 




IO 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



assumed in our behalf, with a view to our 
redemption, and the establishment of his spir- 
itual reign, through which he purposed our 
elevation to the fellowship of the angels, and 
the blessedness of eternal life. Wheu he 
next comes it will be to finish the work 
begun in his humiliation, and to gather 
and display the results of his mediatorial 
reign, in the glorification of his people with 
himself, and in the vindication of his kingly- 
authority by the punishment of his enemies. 

His Second Coming is therefore to be a 
revelation of his personal glory, and of his 
oneness with the Father, and his royal pre- 
rogatives as King of kings and Lord of lords. 
In this revelation he will bring with him all 
the holy angels, and all his saints. His ap- 
proach will be heralded by signs that can 
not deceive. Heaven and earth will feel the 
majesty of his presence, and respond to his 
call to witness his glory. The living will 
stand in awe. The dead will awake to life. 
Time will cease its flow. The great white 
throne will appear. And all the line of 
Adam's race will pass the judgment. It is 
"the day of the Lord." 



THEORIES. 



II 



Such, in brief, is the theme we have in 
hand. Many theories have been devised for 
the purpose of explaining the method and 
purpose of this Second Advent. Those de- 
manding most attention are put forth by pre- 
Millenarians and Universalists. The first 
take away much of the glory of the event 
by assuming that Christ will come to live on 
earth again — to reign, it is true, as a king, but 
upon the earth, and to wield an earthly scepter 
over the nations. The others, in their latest 
expoundings, reduce it to an indefinable " fig- 
urative" coming, which can neither be ex- 
plained nor comprehended. 

The history of pre-Millenarianism is an 
instructive study, showing how the habit of 
speculating upon unfulfilled prophecy, 'with a 
view to support a theory previously adopted, 
tends to fanaticism, and ultimately to skep- 
ticism. But this line of thought is not to be 
pursued. Many now advocate the theory 
who are happily free from the fanatical spirit, 
and whose devotion to evangelical doctrines 
is not called in question. There is, however, 
in their ranks an element by no means incon- 
siderable, that will require all the wisdom of 



12 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the more cultured to restrain, so as to avoid 
the excesses so natural where religious enthu- 
siasm links itself to a dogma so easily distorted. 

The expositors of this theory insist upon 
the recognition of the Scriptures as the 
sole authority in matters of faith, and espe- 
cially with reference to the future. In this 
we join with them cordially. They also lay 
down some canons of interpretation which 
are mainly correct, but need guarding in 
their application. We agree with them that 
the literal sense of the Scriptures is to be 
accepted when it does not lead to absurdities 
or contradictions, or to doctrines out of har- 
mony with the general current of Biblical 
truth. By the literal sense is to be under- 
stood the natural meaning of the words and 
sentences grammatically construed. This does 
not exclude the proper interpretation of figu- 
rative language where there is a figure either 
expressed or implied. The literal sense, if 
we rightly apprehend the point, is the real 
meaning of the words — that meaning which 
the writer or speaker had in his mind, and 
put into the terms employed. In this sense 
we favor the literal interpretation of Scripture. 



THEORIES. 



*3 



In addition to this, there is a species of 
warfare being waged against something called 
the spiritual sense, or the habit of spiritual- 
izing the Scriptures which, while it is not to 
be condemned at wholesale, is to be carefully 
restrained from the extremes of its tendency. 
It is needful to condemn the practice of find- 
ing hidden meanings in passages that are 
plain and easily comprehended, for this has 
always been a fruitful source of error. It is 
also proper to hesitate to receive any doctrine 
that depends on the hidden or spiritual sense 
of the vScriptures, not found in the words, or 
supported by the inevitable meaning of the lan- 
guage. Thus far we agree with the literal- 
ists in opposition to the spiritual sense. But 
there are passages that relate to spiritual 
things. They literally mean spiritualities, 
and can not be understood if the spiritual 
meaning be discarded, for they have no other. 
We insist that in such cases the spiritual 
meaning shall be sought, and, when found, 
adhered to as rigidly as the literal sense in 
other cases. What we want is the meaning 
of the Scripture, be it literal, figurative, or 
purely spiritual. 



14 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



The object of this opposition to spiritual- 
izing is to prevent the application of pro- 
phetic language that speaks of the reign of 
the Messiah and the gathering and glory of 
Israel, to his mediatorial reign in heaven, 
and to the spiritual prosperity of the Church 
of Christ. But if such be the real meaning 
of the prophecies, that meaning is to be 
accepted, whether reached by a process of 
spiritualizing or not. And it is not improb- 
able that a further reason for objecting to 
the spiritual sense of Scriptural terms, is 
found in the fact that some of the passages 
which speak of the coming of Christ are 
taken as indicating a spiritual coming, or 
manifestation in the heart. But dread of 
spiritualizing should not frighten us from the 
truth. For there is a spiritual coming of 
Christ, which is not only of intense interest 
to the believer, as he realizes it in spiritual 
communion with the Savior, but which is 
indispensable in the application of important 
facts and declarations in the sacred Word. 
Christ comes in his kingdom as really as in 
the clouds of heaven. He dwells in the 
heart by faith. The riches of the glory of^ 



THEORIES. I S 

the mystery preached among the Gentiles is 
"Christ in you, the hope of glory." Thus he 
manifests himself to his disciples as he does 
not to the world. The richest legacy the 
Church possesses is this spiritual presence of 
the Son of God. 

The position of "liberalists " — Universal- 
ists always leading the way in Scriptural 
interpretations — is rather difficult to describe, 
because of its vagueness and uncertainty. It 
is mainly negative. Mr. Ballou took ground 
in opposition to the resurrection of the body, 
and denied the existence of sin or suffering 
after death, and found neither room nor use 
for a future advent of Christ, in his system. 
He assumed that sin belonged to the phys- 
ical organism, and that death destroyed its 
source and being, and freed the soul from all 
its consequences and liabilities, so that salva- 
tion was the immediate and necessary result 
of separation from the body, which in death 
was abandoned to total destruction. With 
him the Second Coming was all figurative, 
and he located it on the day of Pentecost. 
But a species of materialism soon gained as- 
cendency with his followers, so that in a 



16 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



few years the whole system was essentially 
changed. The leaders of thought among 
them assumed that both death and the resur- 
rection affected man in his entire nature. 
This involved the soul-sleeping idea, and a 
future resurrection of the whole man. Then 
a personal advent of Christ was brought in 
to take place at the end of the Gospel age, 
to raise the dead, but not to judge the world. 
At that time the great thought of the system 
was salvation in the resurrection. Christ 
was to come and raise all the dead, and 
clothe them with immortality and holiness 
and eternal life. That theory took none' to 
heaven till the resurrection, and then it took 
all together. But this did not last. The 
Swedenborgian notion concerning the resur- 
rection crept in and supplanted the doctrine 
of the resurrection of the body at the end 
of the world. And with this modification 
the materialistic conception of sin was largely 
given up. Then came an idea of probation, 
and of conditional salvation — sounding like 
evangelical truth, but extending the proba- 
tion into the future, and making it a law for 
all worlds and all ages, and insisting that all 



THEORIES. 



17 



will at some time comply with the conditions 
of life, and enter the kingdom of God. This 
is the form of Universalism that is now pro- 
posing to lead the Christian world into the 
light! It has no place for a Second Advent, 
as it denies the resurrection of the body and 
future judgment. It finds only the " figura- 
tive" coming, and places it at the destruction 
of Jerusalem, where Christ foretold that false 
Christs would appear, and false teachers would 
affirm his coming, and said to his followers in 
regard to all such assertions, " Believe it not." 

We thus indicate the positions of the 
parties to the current discussion concerning 
the promised return of our Lord, so that the 
bearing of the argument can at any time be 
seen. We hold, first of all, to a spiritual 
coming, which completed the opening of the 
Gospel dispensation, and the establishment 
of the kingdom of God; and, also, to a per- 
sonal coming in glory, at the end of the 
Gospel dispensation, to raise the dead, to 
judge the world, punish the wicked, reward 
the righteous, and to deliver up the kingdom 
to God, even the Father, that God may be 
all in all. 

2 



1 8 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter II. 

CHRIST COMING IN HIS KINGDOM. 

WHEN John the Baptist began to preach 
in the wilderness of Judea, he said: 
' ' Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is 
at hand." Immediately after his baptism 
and temptation in the wilderness, " Jesus 
came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of 
the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is 
fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand: 
repent ye, and believe the Gospel." In this 
way the people were induced to expect that 
the kingdom of God was about to be estab- 
lished on the earth. Was the expectation 
thus created well founded? Did the king- 
dom of God appear? 

That the expectation was created, and 
that the people did look for the coming of 
the kingdom of God, no one familiar with 
the Scriptures will deny. But some do deny 



CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 



19 



that the kingdom has come. They tell us 
that its establishment on the earth belongs to 
the period of the Second Coming of Christ, 
and not to his first coming. This brings us 
face to face with serious questions. Both 
the character and design of the Gospel dis- 
pensation are involved, as well as the intent 
and purpose of the Second Advent. If the 
kingdom ot God has not come, how are Ave 
to explain the preaching of Christ that pro- 
duced the expectation of it? How shall we 
understand the oft-repeated declaration, "The 
kingdom of God is at hand?" Why were the 
disciples instructed to say to every house and 
to every village and city that received them, 
or that received them not, "The kingdom 
of God is come nigh unto you?" It must 
be that the kingdom of God is come, — that 
the Gospel we preach is the "Gospel of the 
kingdom," — that those who receive Christ, 
and are "born again," are born of the Spirit 
into the kingdom of God. We thus believe 
and teach in all good conscience, and if it be 
that the kingdom of God is not yet, but is 
to come when Christ comes again, then must 
our preaching be "another Gospel." 



20 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



We have said the people did expect the 
speedy coming of the kingdom. Let us 
now see whether this expectation was well 
founded. Was it the legitimate result of the 
preaching of Christ and his disciples; or was 
it a misapprehension of their utterances? 
There is no doubt that the people formed 
erroneous notions of the nature of the king- 
dom, when it was preached as near at hand, 
and may it not be that they were as far 
astray in looking for its manifestation within 
their day? In order to test this question, 
we must examine those sayings of Christ 
which limit the time of the coming of the 
kingdom to the life-time of those then liv- 
ing. These important testimonies are the 
following: " Verily I say unto you, There be 
some standing here which shall not taste of 
death, till they see the Son of man coming 
in his kingdom." "Verily I say unto you, 
That there be some of them that stand here 
which shall not taste of death, till they have 
seen the kingdom of God come with power." 
"But I tell you of a truth, there be some 
standing here, which shall not taste of death, 
till they see the kingdom of God." (Matt. 



CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 



21 



xvi, 28; Mark ix, 1 ; Luke ix, 27.) These are 
parallel, and the slight variations in the words 
assist us in gathering the meaning. The 
"coming of the Son of man in his kingdom" 
"the coming of the kingdom of God with 
power," and "seeing the kingdom of God," 
all refer to the same general occurrence, the 
setting up of God's kingdom on the earth. 
This is the coming of the kingdom for which 
the disciples were taught to pray. It means 
something that was near at hand. 

Let it be observed that no ambiguous 
term is employed to denote the nearness of 
the kingdom. The word "generation" is 
not found here. There is no possibility of 
stretching the time beyond a very few years. 
It must occur within the life-time of some 
that heard him, or the statement must prove 
false. 

And there is yet another passage which 
limits the time of the coming of the Son of 
man in his kingdom, or in connection with 
the manifestation of the kingdom, quite as 
positively, and perhaps to a shorter time, 
than those just quoted. It is, "But when 
they persecute you in this city, flee ye into 



22 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall 
not have gone over the cities of Israel, till 
the Son of man be come." (Matt, x, 23.) 
This occurs in the instruction given the apos- 
tles when sent out under the first commission, 
which ran thus: "Go not into the way of 
the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samar- 
itans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye 
go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven 
is at hand. ,, This was a limited commission. 
It was preparatory to the coming kingdom. 
Every point in this ministry looked to that 
end. That event, whatever it was, was to 
complete the mission and revelation of the 
Son of man. He would then be "come in 
his kingdom." And this mission to the 
"cities of Israel" w r ould not be be fully ac- 
complished "till the Son of man be come." 
They could "go over the cities of Israel" in 
a few months. The journey was not great, 
and the apostles went two and two. But 
here is the unequivocal assertion, "Ye shall 
not have gone over the cities of Israel, till 
the Son of man be come." Were these 
words fulfilled, or did they fail? Evidently 



CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 



23 



the coming of the Son of man, in this verse, 
is the same as his coming in his kingdom, 
in the verses above; so that if one failed, they 
all failed together. 

In taking the position that these Scrip- 
tures did not fail, but were all fulfilled in 
the time and manner intended, it becomes 
necessary that we find the kingdom of God, 
and the revelation of the Son of man in it, 
within the life-time of those who heard these 
words as they fell from the Master's lips. 
But we must first throw off the embarrass- 
ment which some have felt at this point, and 
guard against a mistake w T hich many have 
made, and which is the source of no little 
confusion. It is a turning-point in the argu- 
ment. The embarrassment arises from con- 
founding things that differ, which is the mis- 
take to be guarded against. The coming of 
Christ in his kingdom, is often confounded 
with his coming in glory, with the angels, 
in the clouds of heaven. This is wrong — an 
error which is the fruitful cause of endless 
errors and difficulties. The events differ 
widely in nature, time, object, and result. 
The one was at hand ; the other in the remote 



24 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



future. The one was known and definitely 
predicted as to time; and the other was 
unknown, unrevealed as to time, and kept 
within the Father's power. The one was to 
occur within the life-time of those living, and 
even before the first mission to the ' ' lost 
sheep" was fulfilled; the other at the "end 
of the world," after wars and famines and 
earthquakes and pestilences and after a ' ' trib- 
ulation" that was to last many centuries. 
The one w r as "in his kingdom;" the other 
is to be with the angels in the clouds, with 
the sound of a trumpet. With the coming 
"in the kingdom" there is no mention of 
the angels, the clouds, the trumpet, the gather- 
ing of the elect, the resurrection, or the judg- 
ment. And, on the other hand, the coming 
"in the clouds" is never limited to the life- 
time of those who heard the Savior. Let 
this fact be noted, and this distinction be 
kept in mind, and much the greater diffi- 
culties of the subject will disappear. The 
coming in the kingdom, which was so near 
at hand, was much more closely related to the j 
first than to the second advent, and it may 
not inappropriately be looked upon as the 



CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 



25 



completion of the coming of Christ in the 
work of redemption. It is at the beginning, 
while the coming in the clouds is at the end, 
of the Gospel dispensation. The one estab- 
lished the kingdom of God on earth, while 
the other finishes its work, and " delivers it 
up unto God, even the Father." 

Then, we return to the task of finding the 
kingdom of God on earth, within the life- 
time of the then living auditors. When did 
"the kingdom of God come with power?" 
When did "the Son of man come in his 
kingdom?" Let no one imagine that we 
have in mind the destruction of Jerusalem, 
or a "figurative" coming of Christ at the 
time of that calamity. The kingdom of God 
came with power long before that noted 
period in Jewish history. 

We must here learn the nature of the 
kingdom, and something of the manner of 
its coming. When Jesus stood in the pres- 
ence of Pilate, and was questioned concern- 
ing his kingship, he said: "My kingdom is 
not, of this world." This brief sentence 
sheds a world of light on the point in hand. 
The disciples, as did the other Jews, still 



26 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



expected a worldly kingdom, when Messiah 
should reveal himself, and this answer to 
Pilate ought to have been sufficient to dispel 
all such thoughts from those who had confi- 
dence in him. As the kingdom of Christ is 
"not of this world," it is not like worldly 
kingdoms in its manifestation or work. Then, 
with this statement in mind, let us turn to 
another testimony in regard to the coming 
of the kingdom, in Luke xvii, 20, 21: "And 
when he was demanded of the Pharisees 
when the kingdom of God should come, he 
answered them and said, The kingdom of 
God cometh not with observation: neither 
shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, 
behold, the kingdom of God is within you." 
Look again at two sentences here. "The 
kingdom of God cometh not with observa- 
tion" — or, as the marginal reading is, "not 
with outward show." Another world of 
light falls upon our theme ! As the kingdom 
is not of this world, so its "coming" is not 
with "trumpets" and banners; not with 
"clouds" and "angels;" not with any out- 
ward pomp or grandeur, or any thing to 
attract the world, or to command its attention. 



CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 



It must, therefore, come quietly, silently, un- 
observed by the multitude in their heated 
strife for worldly things. And mark again : 
" Behold, the kingdom of God is within you !" 
Here Ave have it. This kingdom, which is 
not of the world, whose coming is silent, gen- 
tle, unostentatious, and unseen by the busy 
throng, is a spiritual kingdom. Its domain is 
the human soul. It rules in the heart ; it is 
the rule of heaven on earth. The Apostle 
Paul, in after years, under divine inspiration, 
declared its nature. " For the kingdom of 
God is not meat and drink, but righteousness 
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
(Rom. xiv, 17.) Every element of the king- 
dom of God is in the Holy Ghost. Where 
the Holy Ghost abides, there is the kingdom 
of God. All who are born of the Spirit are 
born into the kingdom. Here another flood 
of light cheers our search for the kingdom of 
God ! 

The Holy Spirit was in the world before 
the coming of Christ, in some of his offices, 
and to an extent necessary to the dispensa- 
tions preceding the Gospel; and so was the 
kingdom of God in its incipient stages. But 



28 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



while Christ was yet on earth, it was said, 
" For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, be- 
cause that Jesus was not yet glorified." As 
a new manifestation of the Spirit was to fol- 
low the ascension of the Son of man, so a 
new display of the kingdom of God was to 
take place; it was to ' 'come with power." 
This gift of the Holy Ghost, in its fullness of 
energy and love, was the promise of the 
Father. So, after the apostles had ceased to 
preach under the limited commission, which 
kept them from the Gentiles and the Samari- 
tans ; after they had preached the kingdom 
of God at hand to the lost sheep of the house 
of Israel ; and after Christ had been crucified 
and had risen from the dead, and they had re- 
ceived the new commission which sent them 
into "all the world,' ' to "preach the Gospel 
to every creature," they were commanded to 
tarry in Jerusalem till they were endued with 
power from on high. This was to be their 
final qualification for the new ministry com- 
mitted to them, and to meet all their needs, 
and fill all their desires with reference to the 
coming kingdom. When they were all to- 
gether, before the ascension, they asked the 



CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 



29 



risen Savior, saying, "Lord, wilt thou at this 
time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he 
said to them, It is not for you to know the 
times or the seasons which the Father hath 
put in his own power. But ye shall receive 
power after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you ; and ye shall be witnesses unto 
me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and 
in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of 
the earth." Here we gain insight with refer- 
ence to the thoughts of the apostles and their 
expectations. They still looked for the king- 
dom, and their anxious expectation was met 
by the promise of the Holy Ghost. For this 
they waited; and when it was come upon 
them, on the day of Pentecost, they began to 
preach, not a coming kingdom, but the king- 
dom in the heart. The events of that mem- 
orable Pentecost ended all looking for an out- 
ward kingdom. Then and there the kingdom 
of God came with power ; then the Son of 
man came in his kingdom. 

A careful study of the promises of Christ 
respecting the coming and offices of the Com- 
forter will show that he w T as to reveal both 
the Father and the Son, so that his presence 



30 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



was to be the presence of Christ for all spirit- 
ual ends and work. We give an example 
from John xiv, 15-23: "If ye love me, keep 
my commandments. And I will pray the 
Father, and he shall give you another Com- 
forter, that he may abide with you forever; 
even the Spirit of truth, whom the world can 
not receive, because it seeth him not, neither 
knoweth him : but ye know him ; for he 
dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I 
will not leave you comfortless : I will come 
to you. Yet a little while, and the world 
seeth me no more ; but ye see me : because I 
live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall 
know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, 
and I in you. He that hath my command- 
ments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth 
me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of 
my Father, and I will love him, and manifest 
myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not 
Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt mani- 
fest thyself unto us, and not unto the world ? 
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man 
love me, he will keep my words : and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto 
him, and make our abode with him." It is 



CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 



3 1 



unquestionable that in the promises, "I will 
come to you," "I will manifest myself to 
him," "And Ave will come unto him and 
make our abode with him," there is a spirit- 
ual presence contemplated, which is fulfilled 
in the gift and abiding of the Holy Ghost. 
This was Christ's own spiritual coming, the 
coming in the kingdom of God, without ob- 
servation. 

Some have objected to this spiritual com- 
ing as insufficient to meet all the promises of 
the Savior to return. We do not propose it 
as sufficient for that purpose. It by no means 
answers to the coming in the glory of the 
Father with the angels. But it meets all the 
conditions of the speedy coming of the king- 
dom of God. It is a coming, a revealing, a 
manifestation of Christ, not to be despised or 
overlooked. It is not the second coming, 
but the complement of the first. It took 
place at the beginning of the Gospel — at the 
precise juncture indicated beforehand, between 
the preaching under the limited commission 
and that under the unlimited. And our pre- 
millennial brethren misapprehend the subject 
when they speak of those who recognize this 



32 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



spiritual coming "as seeking to avoid the 
doctrine of the personal coming of our Lord." 
It stands not in the way of the "personal 
coming," but it takes away from the Pre- 
millennialists their cherished notion, which is 
the foundation of their specialty, that the 
kingdom of God has not yet come, and will 
not come till Christ comes in person. 

Nor does this doctrine of the coming of 
the kingdom of God and of the spiritual 
presence of the Son of man in his kingdom 
conflict with any thing said in the Scriptures 
of the appearance of the kingdom when Christ 
comes in glory to raise the dead and judge 
the world. In this instance the kingdom 
comes to abide on earth ; it comes to gather 
subjects, to extend its dominion, to take pos- 
session of penitent souls ; and therefore its 
coming is a matter of personal experience, 
prayed for by all Christians, unseen by the 
world, and unrecognized except by faith. 
But, at the end of this dispensation of the 
kingdom, when its subjects are all gathered, 
and its conquests won — when all rule, and 
all authority and power shall have been 
put down, it must be manifested in its com- 



CHRIST'S KINGDOM. 



33 



pleteness and glory, when the Lord Messiah 
shall come in person, in the clouds of heaven, 
with all his angels and saints, and, as King 
of kings, shall sit upon the throne of his glory 
and render unto men according to their deeds. 
He will " judge the quick and the dead at his 
appearing and kingdom." 

3 



34 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter III. 

THE PERSONAL COMING. 

IT is not unusual with Pre-millennialists to 
assume in their arguments that any ad- 
vocacy of a personal and visible coming of 
Christ is an advocacy of their particular view 
of his bodily appearing to reign upon the 
earth. This, however, is unwarranted by the 
facts. Post-millennialists and Anti-millennial- 
ists look forward to the Second Advent as a 
literal and visible fact, with equal positiveness, 
and quite as much consistency, as do those 
who expect Jesus of Nazareth yet to become 
king in Jerusalem, sitting upon a literal throne. 
The difference is with reference to the time 
and object of the advent— the one class hold- 
ing that it is to set up the kingdom on earth, 
and the others believing it is to close up the 
affairs of the spiritual kingdom, to raise the 
dead, and judge the world in righteousness. 



THE PERSONAL COMING. 35 



The personal coming is denied by " Lib- 
eralists," who deny the future judgment. 
These turn the glowing descriptions of Christ's 
second coming into rhetorical embellishments 
of things occurring among the nations, and re- 
ject the idea of any visible appearance of 
Christ, either before or after the period known 
as the "thousand years'' of Satan's bondage. 
It is therefore necessary that Ave look di- 
rectly at the question of a personal coming of 
the Lord. 

This is purely a question of Revelation. 
The Scriptures are our only authority. The 
language in which the fact in question is set 
forth must be interpreted according to its 
proper import, the same as when any other 
subject is presented. We must not assume in 
advance that some "figurative" or strange 
meaning must be sought for the terms em- 
ployed. If any of the words are technical, 
their signification must be found in use by 
comparing Scripture with Scripture, not in the 
usage adopted by specialists in theology, who 
have forced upon the terms meanings in har- 
mony with their favorite theories. 

The first passage we cite, as distinctly con- 



36 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



veying the idea of a personal coming, is Acts 
i, 9-1 1 : "And when he had spoken these 
things, while they beheld, he was taken up ; 
and a cloud received him out of their sight. 
And while they looked steadfastly toward 
heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood 
by them in white apparel; which'also said, Ye 
men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into 
heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up 
from you into heaven, shall so come in like 
manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. " 
This is as explicit an assertion of a personal com- 
ing as words could well make. Jesus ascended 
in the presence of the disciples. He is unmis- 
takably known to them. He went up in per- 
son, while they were looking at him, and the 
cloud inclosed him, and took him out of 
sight. The two men in white apparel were 
not mortals— they were angels of God, unless, 
perchance, they were the two men, Moses 
and Elias, w T ho appeared with him in the 
transfiguration, and were overwhelmed with 
him in the cloud. They were of the escort 
that went with him to heaven. Their words 
were intended for the comfort of those ad- 
dressed, and could not have been more defi- 



THE PERSONAL COMING. 



37 



nite. "This same Jesus." The name iden- 
tifies the person. "Which is taken up from 
you into heaven." There is nothing doubt- 
ful here. "Shall so come in like manner as 
ye have seen him go into heaven." This 
determines both the fact and the mode. He 
shall come as he went. He went up person- 
ally, bodily, literally, visibly; he went up in 
a cloud with the angels. And he shall so 
come, in like manner. He must, therefore, 
come personally, bodily, literally, visibly; he 
must come in a cloud, with the angels. 

And thus he declared himself that he 
would. Unto the high-priest, who "ad- 
jured" him, he said: "Nevertheless I say 
unto you, hereafter shall ye see the Son of 
man sitting on the right-hand of power, and 
coming in the clouds of heaven." In many 
places both the angels and the clouds are 
associated with him, when he comes in his 
glory. 

This ascension in the cloud fulfilled a re- 
markable prophecy in Daniel: "And I saw 
in the night visions, and, behold, one like 
the Son of man came with the clouds of 
heaven/ and came to the Ancient of days, 



38 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



and they brought him near before him. And 
there was given him dominion and glory and 
a kingdom, that all people, nations, and lan- 
guages should serve him; his dominion is an 
everlasting dominion which shall not pass 
away, and his kingdom that which shall not 
be destroyed." (Dan. vii, 13, 14.) This 
prophecy is often applied to the Second 
Coming of Christ, but such application is 
manifestly wrong. The scene is in heaven, 
and the Son of man was " coming to the 
Ancient of days," not to this world; and he 
was coming to him to receive a kingdom. 
It was the day of his coronation in heaven, 
and in every respect answers to the period 
of his ascension in a cloud. 

Having thus been raised from the dead, 
and exalted to the right-hand of God — "Far 
above all principality, and power, and might, 
and dominion, and every name that is named, 
not only in this world, but also in that which 
is to come," — "he sat down, from hence- 
forth expecting till his enemies be made his 
footstool." In other words, he must remain 
in heaven during the period of his mediator- 
ship — that is, till the work of his kingdom 



THE PERSONAL COMING. 



39 



on earth is accomplished. Hence, Peter said 
of him, in his discourse in Solomon's porch 
of the temple: "Whom the heaven must 
receive until the times of restitution of all 
things, which God hath spoken by the mouth 
of all his holy prophets since the world be- 
gan. " This can not mean less than, till every 
prophecy relating to the kingdom of Christ, 
and his rule and work on earth, is fulfilled. 
It holds his bodily presence in heaven till 
after the chaining of Satan, and the thousand 
years of his imprisonment, because "the 
time of the restitution of all things" is nec- 
essarily beyond this millennium, to which 
some of the prophecies relate. 

Inasmuch as most of the passages which 
speak of the personal coming of Christ will re- 
ceive attention in other chapters, and in con- 
nections requiring specific applications, it is 
needless to enlarge on many of them here. 
We must, however, glance at the terms em- 
ployed to give expression to the personal 
advent. 

Look at the word paronsia. Its definition 
is, "a coming, an approach, presence." It 
denotes particularly the coming or presence 



40 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



of a person. Thus Paul says: "I am glad 
of the parousia [coming] of Stephanas and 
Fortunatus and Achaicus." (i Cor. xvi, 17.) 
Again, ' i That your rejoicing may be more 
abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my 
parousia [coming] to you again." (Phil, i, 
26.) Also, "For his letters, say they, are 
weighty and powerful ; but his bodily parou- 
sia [presence] is weak, and his speech con- 
temptible." (2 Cor. x, 10.) Once more, 
"Nevertheless God, that comforteth those 
that are cast down, comforteth us by the 
parousia [coming] of Titus." (2 Cor. vii, 6.) 
This word, which so plainly expresses a lit- 
eral, personal coming or presence, is used in 
a multitude of instances with reference to 
the coming of Christ; and in such relations 
that no "figurative," or even spiritual, man- 
ifestation can possibly be meant. Thus, 
when the angels, the saints, the clouds, and 
the trumpets accompany him, and when he 
raises the dead, sits upon the throne, and 
renders unto men according to their works. 

The word epiphaneia is likewise used to 
denote the personal appearing of our Lord 
in his Second Coming. The lexicographers 



THE PERSONAL COMING. 



41 



define it, "an appearance, show, display, 
grandeur, splendor." In its classical use, it 
applies to the invisible divinities that become 
visible. It also applies to the appearance of 
of the sun after the passing away of clouds. 
In the New Testament it expresses the visi- 
bility of the Son of God, when he comes 
forth from the Father, so as to be seen of 
men. In 2 Tim. i, 10, it expresses the "ap- 
pearing" of Jesus Christ on earth, when he 
accomplished the work of redemption. It 
occurs in Titus ii, 13: " Looking for that 
blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of 
the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ." 
This epiphany is necessarily personal and vis- 
ible. Also in the following: "And not to me 
only, but unto all them also that love his ap- 
pearing" (2 Tim. iv, 8.) And in this: "Who 
shall judge the quick and the dead at his 
appearing and kingdom." These are cited 
as examples. The conclusion to which a 
thorough tracing of the word would lead 
is apparent. 

Another word may be studied. In 2 
Thess. i, 7, the word apokalupsis expresses 
the "revelation" of the Lord Jesus, when 



42 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



he comes with "his mighty angels." It is 
defined "an uncovering, exposure; a revela- 
tion, disclosure, exposition; a display, ap- 
pearance, manifestation." It may apply to 
persons or things, and especially to spiritual 
truths. It is the title of the last book of 
the New Testament. The first verse of that 
book, however, shows that Jesus Christ is 
the subject of the revelation. Paul says, Gal. i, 
16: "But when it pleased God to reveal his 
Son in me that I might preach him among 
the heathen, immediately I conferred not 
with flesh and blood." The allusion is to 
the revelation of Christ to him, when on the 
way to Damascus, he was arrested by the 
overwhelming light, and heard a voice, say- 
ing, "Why persecutest thou me?" And, in 
answer to the inquiry, "Who art thou, 
Lord?" he heard the words, "I am Jesus 
whom thou persecutest." This same "reve- 
lation" is again alluded to in the following: 
"Last of all he was seen of me also, as of 
one born out of due time." (i Cor. xv, 8.) 
This word also relates to a personal appear- 
ance, in i Peter i, 7: "Might be found unto 



THE PERSONAL COMING. 



43 



praise and honor and glory at the appearing 
of Jesus Christ." It is also rendered "com- 
ing," where a personal revelation is meant, 
in i Cor, i, 7: "Waiting for the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ." 

These are not the only words that convey 
the idea of a personal coming. The ordinary 
verbs that express the act of coming are 
found in almost every form, and in such 
relations as to express a movement from 
heaven. "For our conversation is in heaven; 
from whence also we look for the Savior, 
the Lord Jesus Christ." (Phil, iii, 20.) 
"And to wait for his Son from heaven." 
(1 Thess. i, 10.) "The Lord himself shall 
descend from heaven." (1 Thess. iv, 16.) 
".When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from 
heaven with his mighty angels." (2 Thess. 
i, 7.) "For the Son of man shall come in 
the glory of his Father, with the angels." 
(Matt, xvi, 27.) Thus Christ "comes;" he 
"descends from heaven;" he comes "with the 
angels;" he comes "in the clouds." And 
when he comes, he "'sits upon the throne of 
his glory;" he raises the dead; he judges the 



44 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



world; he " confesses " men; he "denies" 
men; he is "ashamed" of men. In every 
variety of form, personal coming is ex- 
pressed, and personal actions are attributed 
to him when he comes. If there be no per- 
sonal advent in the future the language of 
the New Testament is not only incompre- 
hensible, but misleading. 

Sometimes, while training his disciples to 
think for themselves, and to apprehend spirit- 
ual things, he astonished them with seem- 
ing paradoxical statements, and by bringing 
events remote from each other in themselves 
into close relations, by the use of similar 
language in describing them. Thus in one 
sentence he speaks of his personal coming 
in the glory of his Father, with the angels, 
to render unto men according to their works; 
and in the next instant he speaks of his 
speedy coming in his kingdom — marking the 
transition of thought by his familiar "Verily 
I say unto you. n Matt, xvi, 27, 28, is a 
striking example of this method of mention- 
ing different events in connection, because of 
resemblance in some particular, either in fact 



THE PERSONAL COMING. 



45 



or in relation. Thus he said many things 
which the disciples did not and could not 
understand until the Holy Ghost came upon 
them, and led them into all truth. But there 
is nothing affirmed in all or any of his words 
contrary to his personal coming. 



46 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter IV. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
J HEN our Savior had finished his dis- 



* V courses in the temple, in which he so 
severely dealt with the hypocrisies and in- 
consistencies of the Jews, the disciples called 
his attention to the buildings ; and he said to 
them, "See ye not all these things? verily, I 
say unto you, there shall not be left here one 
stone upon another, that shall not be thrown 
down." This statement so impressed them 
that they desired to hear more on the subject, 
and they embraced the first suitable opportu- 
nity of seeking further light. "And as he 
sat upon the Mount of Olives the disciples 
came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, 
when shall these things be? and what shall 
be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of 
the world?" (Matt, xxiv, 2, 3.) 

These questions gave occasion for that 




THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 47 



elaborate statement concerning the destruction 
of Jerusalem, the coming of Christ, and "the 
end of the world," which is consecutively re- 
ported by Matthew in the twenty-fourth and 
twenty-fifth chapters of his Gospel, and which 
is given less methodically by Mark and Luke. 

Perhaps no part of the New Testament 
has caused so much discussion, or given rise 
to so many diverse and conflicting opinions, as 
this prophecy. Many, with much learning, 
have taken in hand to set forth in order its 
true meaning, and with no little confidence 
have proclaimed the mystery solved — only to 
be followed by others, who point out the mis- 
takes of all preceding expositors, and insist 
upon still another interpretation. In the pres- 
ence of such experiences, we desire with be- 
coming modesty to seek the meaning of so 
* much of this discourse as bears upon the topic 
in hand, and to make such application of the 
language as will accord with the New Testa- 
ment teaching in its less intricate portions. 

The first thing to be attended to is the 
scope of these questions. We can not see 
into the minds of the disciples, as they came 
privately to the Master, so as to know pre- 



48 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



cisely the thoughts that gave form to their in- 
quiries ; nor is it essential that we should ; for 
it is quite probable that the answers elicited 
carried their ideas into wider fields, and 
brought before them events of mightier im- 
port than they could possibly have anticipated. 
And yet it is evident that they expected rev- 
elations of a serious character, and perhaps 
startling and far-reaching in results. By the 
first question they alluded to the statement 
previously made that not one stone should be 
left upon another that should not be thrown 
down. This pointed to the coming destruc- 
tion of the city and temple ; and, as this 
question referred to that event, there is no 
doubt that so much of the discourse as an- 
swered it should be interpreted as relating to 
that calamity. Thus far the ground is solid 
beneath us, and no room for controversy. 
All parties agree to this. But the second 
question introduces additional matter, and lays 
the foundation for the discussions which have 
ensued. It is not improbable, from the con- 
nection these questions seem to have had in 
the minds of the disciples, that they had an 
impression that the downfall of those magnifi- 



THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 49 



cent buildings would only take place when 
Christ should come in his glory, as he had so 
often told them he would come; and this 
coming they evidently supposed would be at 
4 'the end of the world.'' But, whatever they 
thought, whether their conceptions of the fu- 
ture coming of the Son of man were correct 
or not, matters little to us, since our conclu- 
sions must be guided wholly by the answers 
given. The two questions are distinct, and 
the last has two items in it which are as closely 
joined in the answer as in the question. We 
shall therefore take up the first question, and 
try to gather the answer to it, leaving the 
other question and answer for succeeding 
chapters. 

' 'When shall these things be?" The Sa- 
vior might have given a direct answer to this, 
naming the number of years, if that had been 
best, or had accorded with his purpose ; but 
he did not. He began with an admonition. 
His first utterance was, " Take heed that no 
man deceive you." The danger of deception 
was present to his mind. He saw this in the 
way they reasoned among themselves and in 
their tendency to expect the literal kingdom, 
4 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



with the Messiah enthroned in Jerusalem ; 
and he probably foresaw the time when false 
interpretations of his words would locate his 
second coming in connection with the disas- 
ters about to be described. At all events, his 
warning against deceivers related to false asser- 
tions of Christ's presence here and there, in 
the midst of the confusion and disorder so 
near at hand. " For many shall come in my 
name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive 
many." Following this comes a general de- 
scription of the world, which, in a limited 
sense, applies to the condition of things prior 
to the dow nfall of the city, but reaches out in 
its ultimate meaning to coming ages, and 
shows the bearing of the remark, "But the 
end is not yet. " Evidently he intended to 
impress the disciples that much time would 
elapse before the "end" should come. "For 
nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom 
against kingdom ; and there shall be famines, 
and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers 
places. All these things are the beginning of 
sorrows." The effort that some have made to 
restrict all this to the petty strifes between 
the tribes of Israel is futile. When our Sa- 



THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 51 



vior said "nations" and " kingdoms" he 
meant nations and kingdoms; and when he 
mentioned "wars and rumors of wars" he 
spoke in the language of men, to be under- 
stood in the popular sense. And then all these 
were not the end, but the "beginning of sor- 
rows." An indefinite train of evils was to 
come, which no thoughtful person would ex- 
pect to begin and end in a single life-time. 
And so in the following, concerning their own 
experiences: "Then shall they deliver you 
up to be afflicted, and shall kill you ; and ye 
shall be hated of all nations for my name's 
sake. And then shall many be offended, and 
shall betray one another. And many false 
prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. 
And because iniquity shall abound, the love 
of many shall wax cold. But he that shall 
endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." 
He is still generalizing, or portraying success- 
ive events, reaching far down into the coming 
ages, if not to the end of time. And to this 
list he adds one more general prediction be- 
fore coming to his answer to the first ques- 
tion : "And this Gospel of the kingdom shall 
be preached in all the world for a witness 



5* 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



unto all nations ; and then shall the end come." 
This looks to the full extent of the commis- 
sion, afterwards given, to "go into all the 
world and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
ture. " The word here rendered world — oikon- 
mene — means the habitable earth ; and the ad- 
dition of "all nations " cuts off all possibility 
of restricting the language to a limited por- 
tion of the world. Thus far the Master was 
looking at the sweep of centuries, and seeking 
to lift the thoughts of his hearers from the 
narrow range of their previous conceptions. 

Then comes his answer to the first ques- 
tion, which begins with the fifteenth verse, 
and includes the twenty-second: "When ye 
therefore shall see the abomination of desola- 
tion, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand 
in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him un- 
derstand), then let them which be in Judea 
flee into the mountains: let him which is on 
the housetop not come down to take any 
thing out of his house; neither let him which 
is in the field return back to take his clothes. 
And woe unto them that are with child, and 
to them that give suck in those days ! But 
pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, 



THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 



S3 



neither on the Sabbath day. For then shall 
be great tribulation, such as was not since the 
beginning of the world to this time, no, nor 
ever shall be. And except those days should 
be shortened, there should no flesh be saved : 
but for the elect's sake those days shall be 
shortened." 

In Luke's report of this answer, it is said, 
"When ye see Jerusalem compassed with 
armies, then know that the desolation thereof 
is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea 
flee to the mountains. ,, It is therefore cer- 
tain that the "abomination of desolation'' 
was connected with the Roman army. But 
we need not specify details. The point is 
made that the answer to the first question re- 
lates to the downfall of Jerusalem. To this 
there is scarcely a dissent among expositors 
of note. But it should be remarked that 
down to this point not a word is said by the 
Lord about his coming. With all he says 
about this terrible state of things, including 
the war, the desolation of the city, and the 
unexampled tribulation, to exceed in severity 
any thing in the history of the past, he gives 
not the slightest hint of any kind concerning 



54 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the coming of the Son of man. In view of 
the positiveness with which Universalists and 
others assert that Christ came " figuratively " 
to bring this great judgment on the Jewish 
nation, the absence of allusion to himself in 
this connection is a fact to be remembered. 

A "figurative" coming of Christ is no 
coming at all. Those who believe in such a 
" coming " at the destruction of Jerusalem im- 
pose upon themselves by the sound of words 
without meaning. If the phrase, a "figura- 
tive coming," have any meaning it fails to 
reach our perception. Certainly those who 
use it intend to say that Christ himself did 
not come in person ; and if he did not come 
in person as the Son of man he did not come 
at all. A figurative advent is a myth. But 
it is probable that those who speak of the 
" figurative coming" mean that there is a fig- 
ure of speech in the language which describes 
the coming. In other words, the language of 
Christ, and not his promised coming, is figura- 
tive. This is more intelligible, but it reduces 
the coming in the clouds with the angels — for 
this is the only coming mentioned in the en- 
tire discourse — to a flourish of rhetoric ! And 



THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 



55 



this coming, be it remembered, is not prom- 
ised in connection with the answer to the first 
question, the one that related specifically to 
the calamities about to come upon the Jews. 

Then Ave come face to face with a fact of 
the utmost importance in this discussion — that 
there was no coming of Christ at the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem of any kind, whether literal, 
"figurative/ 5 spiritual, or judicial. Xone but 
"false Christs" were to be expected at that 
time. 

Having answered the first question, as we 
have seen, the Savior returned to the warning 
against deceivers, with which he prefaced his 
general remarks on the future of the nations, 
and emphasized the warning by reiteration. 
His earnestness shows that this was the point 
of danger to his followers. "Then" — mark 
the note of time — "Then if any man shall say 
unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe 
it not." Christ was not to be expected. To 
all who affirm that he came at that time, "fig- 
uratively," or any other way, this emphatic 
injunction applies — "Believe it not." False 
teachers and false Christs were to be numer- 
ous, but the living Christ affirmed that that 



56 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



was not the time to look for him or his com- 
ing. "For there shall arise false Christs and 
false prophets, and shall show great signs and 
wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, 
they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I 
have told you before. Wherefore if they shall 
say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go 
not forth : behold, he is in the secret cham- 
bers; believe it not." How could he more 
positively or unequivocally declare that he 
would not be there ? And yet, in the face of 
these repeated warnings and these plain affir- 
mations that none but false Christs were to 
come at that time, this time and place, above 
all others in the world's history, are selected 
by many — including the best and most learned 
of men, as the scene of the fulfillment of his 
most sublime utterances in regard to his com- 
ing in the glory of the Father, with the holy 
angels ! Verily, there was occasion for his 
warnings and for his sorrowful intimation that 
the "very elect" were liable to be deceived. 

Following this warning against expecting 
him to come in the midst of these scenes of 
disaster, the Savior gives a reason why all re- 
ports of his presence, whether in the desert or 



THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 57 



in secret chambers, should be disbelieved, 
even when supported by " signs and won- 
ders." That reason shows that his coming 
was not to be of a private or local character ; 
that it was not to depend upon the testimony 
of witnesses ; that, on the contrary, it was to 
be so public, so manifest, and so glorious that 
there could be no failure to recognize it, and 
no possibility of passing it in doubt. "For 
as the lightning cometh out of the east, and 
shineth even unto the west, so shall also the 
coming of the Son of man be." 

This was his first direct statement concern- 
ing his coming in this discourse ; and certainly 
it ought to discourage all interpreters from 
looking for a local or " figurative " advent, 
where he so often assured them it was not to 
be found. And whether the disciples, who 
came to him with these questions, associated 
his " coming and the end of the world " with 
the destruction of Jerusalem or not, when 
they propounded the questions, it is quite 
certain that his answers were calculated to 
drive out all such impressions, and to show 
them that the events they were considering 
were very different in character, and widely 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



separated in point of time. For he not only 
told them that his coming would not take 
place then, but with equal explicitness he 
said, "the end is not yet." Why, then, 
must we be told again and again, as we are 
by learned expositors, that the "end" to 
which reference was made, did come then? 
Is not this one of the marvels of criticism? 
And yet learned disquisitions are written to 
show that the destruction of Jerusalem was 
"the end of the world" — the aion, or Jewish 
age ! This point is of sufficient importance 
to occupy a separate chapter, which we de- 
vote to its elucidation. 

The destruction of Jerusalem was the cul- 
mination of a series of revolts on the part 
of the Jews, and subjugations by the Roman 
power. Under Nero the war began, and 
Vespasian was given command of the Roman 
army, and undertook to subdue the rebellion. 
But each defeat was followed by a new out- 
break. At length Vespasian was called to 
Rome, where he became emperor, and com- 
mitted to Titus the duty of putting an end 
to Jewish revolts. This general entered upon 
his task with spirit, and, being fully empow- 



THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 59 



ered by his master, whose experiences with 
this people had taught him the formidable char- 
acter of the undertaking, he summoned to his 
aid every needed means of success, and car- 
ried the war to the environments of the cap- 
ital of the nation. Here matters reached a 
crisis. The Roman general is accredited 
with humane dispositions, and it is thought 
he was reluctant to assail the stronghold, but 
was compelled, by duty to his government, 
and the stubbornness of the Jews, to proceed 
to a degree of slaughter and destruction that 
was painful to himself. However this may 
be, the city was eventually carried, and the 
misery and ruin attending the contest have 
rendered the downfall of Jerusalem an event 
of marked notoriety in the history of blood- 
shed and devastation. The city and temple 
were destroyed; many thousands fell in bat- 
tle, and by the fury of the troops after the 
capture of the city, and the untold sufferings 
by famine and pestilence can scarcely be 
imagined. 

This great calamity occurred A. D. 70. 
Many Jews were then carried off and sold 
into slavery. But few remained about the 



6o 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



ruins of the city. Some continued to live in 
Palestine; and, as it was not the policy of 
the Romans to compel conquered provinces 
to abandon their national religion, the Jews 
were permitted to hold their Sanhedrim in 
Samaria. They therefore retained some of 
their ecclesiastical forms, and remained a 
people after the destruction of their capital. 
Before this war there were large colonies of 
the Jews in other countries — in Egypt, in 
Mesopotamia, and in Africa. After the war, 
these foreign colonies received large acces- 
sions from the land of their fathers. Al- 
though conquered, scattered, and peeled, 
their spirits were not broken, and dreams of 
freedom and national restoration were fondly 
cherished. They kept up correspondence, 
and cultivated mutual sympathy, and a 
patriotic feeling, mingled with religious en- 
thusiasm, that would not long remain quiet 
under Roman domination — especially in view 
of the laws enacted forbidding circumcision, 
and requiring contributions for the support 
of Pagan temples. And they prospered 
amazingly in the increase of wealth and 
population. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 6 1 



In fifty years after the destruction of Jeru- 
salem they were again ripe for revolt. They 
were on the lookout for the Messiah, and 
anxiously expecting him to come as a deliv- 
erer, and break for them the yoke of bond- 
age, now so oppressive, and so heartily de- 
tested. All that was needed to kindle the 
flame of war, and gather the scattered hosts 
of Israel, for the recovery of their freedom, 
was a leader sufficiently skilled and courag- 
eous to command their confidence and strike 
the blow. 

About this time arose a leader who was 
called Bar-cochba — Son of a Star. This title 
was to impress the Jews that he was the one 
predicted in Balaam's prophecy, that " there 
shall come a star out of Jacob, and a scepter 
shall rise out of Israel." Of his real name 
or personal history we have no information. 
Nor do we know certainly that he claimed 
the title or the honors of the Messiahship. 
But it is evident that the Jews very largely 
believed he was their deliverer, and rallied to 
his standard in great numbers, and with 
astonishing wealth and means of war. 

Taking advantage of the absence of the 



62 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Roman forces in a distant part of the empire, 
the Jews sprang to arms and struck for the 
recovery of Palestine. They gained the city of 
Jerusalem — not large, nor populous, nor rich, 
but sacred, and they took possession of most 
of the country, and even pushed out beyond 
the borders of the Holy Land. Another 
bloody war ensued. Adrian called his chief 
general from the West, and sent him with all 
speed to reconquer the Jews. The war was 
most sanguinary. Hundreds of thousands 
perished. The sufferings of the Jews ex- 
ceeded the miseries of the overthrow under 
Titus. The destruction of the city w r as now 
completed, and the plowshare was driven 
through the site of the temple. The nation- 
ality of the Jews was destroyed, and their ex- 
pulsion from Judea complete. Thus we see 
that the words of Christ, even as applied to 
the calamities of the Jewish nation, were veri- 
fied, when he said, " But the end is not yet. " 

So far as is known, Christians took no part 
in the rebellions of the Jews, and it is a strik- 
ing evidence of Providential protection, that 
not one of them perished in the fall of Jerusa- 
lem. During a lull in the war, or while the 



THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 63 



Romans were hesitating about attempting the 
capture of the city, it is authentically reported 
that they retired from the city to a place 
called Pella, where they remained in safety 
during the " troublous times." Thus they 
saved themselves by following the direction of 
the Master, who had told them to "flee to 
the mountains." It is safe always to obey the 
word of the Lord in small things as well as in 
great. 

But we are not to assume that his followers 
were to escape trouble entirely. He did not 
promise them this. On the contrary, he fore- 
told their calamities, as well as those of the 
Jews. "Then shall they deliver you up to be 
afflicted, and shall kill you : and ye shall be 
hated of all nations for my name's sake." 
Accordingly, they passed the fires of persecu- 
tion. In some parts of the empire they were 
classed with the Jews, and subjected to all the 
disabilities imposed on that people, and were 
required by law to contribute to the support 
of pagan worship. This involved their con- 
sciences ; and their unwillingness to respond 
to this requirement awakened against them all 
the malice the Romans held against the Jews, 



6 4 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



because of their numerous rebellious and 
stubborn resistance. But the history of those 
terrible days is written, and the lessons of the 
dark record are ours. We find all the words 
of our Lord and Savior verified, not excepting 
his declaration that the calamities he described 
were " the beginning of sorrows." And "the 
end is not yet." Another chapter will con- 
sider the " end of the world," and still an- 
other "the tribulation of those days," and the 
"signs" of that "coming," which was not by 
any manner of means to be expected in con- 
nection with the calamities of the Jewish 
nation. 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



65 



Chapter V. 

THE END OF THE WORLD. 
HE Scriptural phrase, "the end of the 



world," has an important bearing on the 
subject in hand, and deserves careful consid- 
eration. 

It is claimed that this phrase, used by our 
Lord in parable, prophecy, and promise, re- 
lates to the close of the Jewish dispensation, 
and not to the winding up of the affairs of 
this world when time shall cease. And it is 
essential that any system of doctrines that de- 
nies the coming of Christ to judge the world 
at the end of the mediatorial reign should 
maintain this ground ; for the coming of 
Christ at "the end of the world," in some 
sense, is not to be questioned. It is the oc- 
currence of this phrase in the twenty-fourth 
of Matthew, in the second question pro- 
pounded to the Savior, that gives the defend- 




66 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



ers of a figurative coming the anxiety they 
manifest. 

Their position is that the word "world," 
in this phrase, is a mistranslation ; that the 
original word — aion — should be rendered age ; 
and that the application should be made so as 
to show that it was the "end of the Jewish 
age " or dispensation the disciples and the 
Savior were speaking of in the use of this 
language. 

Writers of respectability have given coun- 
tenance to this exposition, so that authorities 
of high character for learning and evangelical 
soundness can be quoted in its support; and 
yet it is clearly untenable and misleading. 
We reject it utterly, and give reasons"; and if 
our reasons are solid, so as to overthrow the 
position against which they are alleged, they 
sweep away the entire assumption of a "fig- 
urative" coming of Christ at the destruction 
of Jerusalem. 

The entire ground of the assertion that 
this phrase means the end of the Jewish age 
is the fact that the word rendered "world" 
sometimes means "age," and may be fairly 
so translated. This fact is not disputed. No 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



6? 



violence would be done if the phrase were 
rendered "the end of the age." The ques- 
tion is not as to the meaning or force of the 
word, but as to its application. If the period 
of the Jewish economy was one "age," the 
period of the Gospel economy is another 
"age" or dispensation; and if the Jewish 
"age" had an "end," the Gospel age will 
also have an " end." Then,conceding that the 
word aion means age y and might be so ren- 
dered, the question is, To which "age" does 
the phrase apply in our Savior's discourses — 
the Jewish or the Christian? This is a ques- 
tion of fact. If it applies to the Jewish age 
alone, the advocates of a figurative coming of 
Christ have one point in their favor, and so 
far may be right. But if it applies to the 
"age" of the Gospel, as we shall see that it 
does, then the notion of a figurative advent 
must be abandoned. The issue is plain and 
vital. 

More has been conceded to the opposition, 
with reference to this word aion, than a 
knowledge of all the facts will warrant. It 
has been claimed, and sometimes admitted, 
that aion never means the "world" in which 



68 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



we live and as we use the term "world." 
We know that kosmos is the proper word for 
"world," and expresses the ordinary concep- 
tion of the material globe, and does it, as aion 
can not ; and yet there is a fact which has 
evidently escaped the attention of those who 
make the broad assertion that aion never 
means " world." In the Greek Testament 
kosmos and aion are used interchangeably in 
some instances, and in other places aion 
plainly takes the meaning of kosmos. An ex- 
p ample of the interchangeable use of these 
words is found in I Cor. iii, 18, 19: "If any 
man among you seemeth to be in this world 
[aio7t], let him become a fool, that he may be 
wise. For the wisdom of this world \kosmos\ 
is foolishness with God." An instance of 
aion taking the meaning of kosmos is found in 
Heb. i, 2: "By whom also he made the 
worlds" \aionas\. Another example of this 
kind is found in Heb. xi, 3: "Through faith 
we understand that the worlds \aionas\ were 
framed by the word of God." The worlds 
that were "made" and "framed" by the 
word of God were none other than the mate- 
rial worlds that float in space, including the 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



69 



world in which we live — the kosmos. We call 
attention to this fact, not for the purpose of 
building an argument upon it, but as an offset 
to the confident assertion which is so often 
made to the contrary. It is a fact not with- 
out significance in this discussion, and yet we 
submit it without further comment. 

The application of the phrase in question 
to the destruction of Jerusalem, or to any 
thing coincident therewith, is unauthorized 
and without meaning. Strange that it should 
have been so widely accepted ! It aims, 
when thus applied, to denote the "end" of 
the Jewish dispensation. But the Jewish dis- 
pensation "ended" long before Jerusalem was 
destroyed. And to this fact we invite partic- 
ular attention. Jerusalem was destroyed forty 
years after the ascension of Christ, and there- 
fore after the ministry of the apostles ; and, 
of course, it was after the "end" of the Jew- 
ish, and after the beginning of the Gospel age. 
The apostle used the phrase correctly, of 
course, and with undoubted reference to the 
" end " of the Jewish age, when he said, " But 
now once in the end of the world \_aio)i\ hath 
he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice 



7o 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



of himself." (Heb. ix, 26.) This shows that 
Christ's first " appearance " or coming was at 
the end of the Jewish age, as his second com- 
ing will be at the end of the Gospel age. 
Strictly speaking, the end of the Jewish age 
was the time that Christ died. It was when 
he "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. " 
That was a typical dispensation, and could 
not last an hour longer than the period of the 
fulfillment of the types. The rending of the 
veil of the temple marked the time of the 
closing up of the typical economy. No other 
period is designated or known in the Scrip- 
tures, or in any wise set forth as the ' ' end of 
the Jewish dispensation." The Christian dis- 
pensation began with the death of Christ, and 
was fully ushered in not later than the day of 
Pentecost, which, as we have seen, was the 
date of the beginning of the kingdom of God 
on earth — the day on w r hich Christ came ' 'in 
his kingdom," and the "kingdom of God 
came with power." That day was an epoch. 
It stands out in history as the birthday of 
the Church of Christ in its new relation, and 
as fully endowed for the conquest of the na- 
tions. We dare not date the new dispensa- 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



71 



tion later than that memorable Pentecost. 
But, if this is correct, the Jewish dispensation 
was then past. The types were fulfilled. 
The apostolic ministry belonged not to the 
Jewish but to the Gospel age, as every intel- 
ligent reader of the Scriptures will readily ad- 
mit. Hence, the Jewish dispensation closed 
and the Christian dispensation began at least 
forty years before the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem — for the dispensations did not lap. Both 
were not in progress at the same time. 
Neither was there a hiatus of forty years be- 
tween them. When one ended the other 
began. The apostles entered upon their min- 
istry under the final commission with the 
dawn of the new dispensation, and lived and 
labored and died in the full blaze of Gospel 
light while Jerusalem was yet standing. It 
is therefore absurd to speak of the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem as "the end of the Jew- 
ish age." 

The phrase in dispute occurs also in the 
great commission, and its use in that place 
ought to determine its application in other 
passages, and particularly where the second 
coming is connected with it. When Christ 



72 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



sent his apostles into all the world to baptize 
and teach the nations, he said to them, "And 
lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world." Does this mean that Christ 
was to be with his ministers only until the 
end of the Jewish age? So we are told by 
those who deny the future coming of the 
Lord to judgment — consistency requires them 
to do it ; but the absurdity of the statement 
must appear upon its face. The commission 
was given them to preach the Gospel, and 
his presence was promised during the time 
they were thus employed. If the preaching 
under this commission belongs to the Gospel 
age, then the promised presence of Christ be- 
longs to the Gospel age, and the promise, 
" Lo, I am with you alway," covers the en- 
tire period of the Gospel dispensation. The 
Jewish age ended before the apostles began 
to preach under this commission. Christ him- 
self brought that dispensation to a close when 
he "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." 
Here we stand with confidence. If the com- 
mission to preach the Gospel to every crea- 
ture belonged to the Jewish age, and was ful- 
filled under that economy, then our critics 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



73 



may be right in their assumption that "the 
end of the world/' in this passage, means 
the "end of the Jewish age." But who 
will assert all this? Who believes it? Surely; 
no one who intelligently weighs the matter 
will affirm any thing so preposterous. And 
yet it must be done, or the very foundation 
of the opposition to the future coming of 
the Son of man to judgment gives way. 
For as certainly as the obligation to preach 
the Gospel pertains to the Gospel age, and 
lasts as long as the age lasts, it follows 
that the spiritual presence of Christ is prom- 
ised throughout that age, and the "end of 
the world" means the end of the Gospel 
age. And if this is the true application of 
the phrase in this passage, it can scarcely 
be possible that it will bear a different appli- 
cation where the Second Coming of Christ is 
connected with 4 'the end of the world." 

The same conclusion is forced upon us 
by the use the Savior made of this phrase 
in his exposition of the parable of the tares 
and the wheat. Matt, xiii, 37-43: "He 
answered and said unto them, He that sow- 
eth the good seed is the Son of man; the 



74 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



field is the world; the good seed are the chil- 
dren of the kingdom ; but the tares are the 
children of the wicked one ; the enemy that 
sowed them is the devil; the harvest is 'the 
end of the world, and the reapers are the 
angels. As, therefore, the tares are gathered 
and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the 
end of this world. The Son of man shall send 
forth his angels, and they shall gather out 
of his kingdom all things that offend, and 
them which do iniquity, and shall cast them 
into a furnace of fire: there shall be wail- 
ing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the 
righteous shine forth as the sun in the king- 
dom of their Father. Who hath ears to 
hear, let him hear. ,, This is full of instruc- 
tion. It is not a parable, but the expo- 
sition of a parable. The language should 
therefore be taken in the most literal sense 
admissible, and particularly with reference to 
the description given of the divine arrange- 
ment for the separation of the tares and 
wheat — the children of the kingdom, and the 
children of the wicked one. 

It is evident that "the end of the world" 
here mentioned did not take place at the 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



75 



time Christ " appeared to put away sin by 
the sacrifice of himself." That great fact 
put an end to the typical economy, and the 
Jewish age, but no one believes it was the 
"harvest" described in this Scripture. Our 
critics do not so apply the language, but 
invariably to the destruction of Jerusalem. 
That sad event is all their hope. If it was 
not the "end of the world," as we have seen 
it was not, their whole theory fails. The 
"harvest" was not then, for the righteous 
did not at that time experience the blessed- 
ness of the promise that they should "shine 
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their 
Father." They received no special distinc- 
tion in connection with the horrors of that 
catastrophe, except that they escaped the 
miseries of the Jews by obeying the direc- 
tion of the Master to "flee to the mount- 
ains." Neither were the angels sent forth at 
that time as the "reapers." The asumption 
that the "angels" were Gospel ministers is 
groundless, and contrary to all correct ideas 
of the Savior's language; and yet if we 
should admit the baseless assumption, the 
facts would condemn the interpretation sought 



76 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



to be forced upon this expression. The 
Gospel ministers were not sent forth at the 
destruction of Jerusalem, but long before, 
so that the apostles had finished their minis- 
try, and had all gone to rest — unless John 
still lingered — before that time. And they 
were not sent forth as "reapers," but as 
"sowers." Their business was unlike that 
which is ascribed to the angels when the 
harvest comes. 

But the point to be noted is, that the 
harvest is the "end" of that particular 
"age" in which the "kingdom of heaven" 
is displayed. Did the parable of the "tares" 
relate to the condition of things before the 
birth of Christ? If the "kingdom of heaven" 
pertained to the Jewish dispensation, and ac- 
complished its work therein, and terminated 
with the close of that typical period, then 
there might be propriety in claiming that 
the "harvest" was the "end of the Jewish 
age." And there can be no propriety in that 
claim without this condition of facts. But 
it was not the Jewish economy that was illus- 
trated by this parable. The kingdom of 
heaven did not belong to that age. The 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 77 



law and the prophets were until John the 
Baptist, and since then the kingdom of 
heaven is preached. This kingdom belongs 
to the age of the Gospel. Its coming was 
seen in Christ's personal ministry, and its es- 
tablishment on earth was complete when the 
kingdom of God came with power on the 
day of Pentecost. The First Coming of 
Christ put an end to the Jewish age, as his 
Second Coming will bring an end to the 
Gospel age. Hence, when he comes, he will 
"send forth his angels" — send them forth 
"with a great sound of a trumpet" — and 
"gather out of his kingdom all things that 
offend" — an expression which, of itself, proves 
beyond question, that the "harvest" is to 
be at the end, and not at the beginning of 
the Gospel age. 

Thus, every turn we give to this language, 
every possible view that has reason in it, 
carries us to the same conclusion, and reveals 
more and more clearly the absurdity of the 
assumption that "the end of the world," 
as used by our Lord, had reference to the 
end of the Jewish age. Such a position can 
not stand for a moment without making 



78 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the kingdom of heaven synchronical with that 
age, and the folly of attempting this is too 
glaring for even those whose doctrine is una- 
ble to stand without it. The "end of the 
age" meant in this parable is the time of the 
"harvest;" and the harvest can not come till 
after the sow r ing of the good seed; and the 
good seed are the children of the kingdom, 
sown by the Son of man. The "tares" grow 
along with the "wheat," and so long as the 
children of the kingdom and the children of 
the wicked one live together in this world, 
it is useless to imagine that the "harvest" 
is past. The harvest separates the tares from 
the wheat, or it does nothing. "So shall it 
be in the end of the world." 

There can be no doubt that the disciples 
learned to associate the coming of Christ with 
the "end of the world," from this parable, 
and the one which follows, — that concerning 
the net, which gathered all kinds of fishes, 
good and bad. The phrase occurs in that 
parable in precisely the same way and in the 
same sense as in this of the tares. Both 
look forward to the Second Coming of Christ 
with the angels. After hearing these para- 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



79 



bles, and hearing them explained by the 
Divine Author himself, they naturally felt 
persuaded that the dispensation of the king- 
dom of heaven about to be inaugurated 
would last till the coming of Christ in glory, 
which he so frequently mentioned. And 
when his attention was called to the magnifi- 
cence and seeming permanence of the temple 
and its surroundings, and he in turn spoke 
of the same, and said to them that ' f not one 
stone should be left upon another that should 
not be thrown down," they sought the first 
opportunity to ask an explanation. 4 'And 
as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the dis- 
ciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell 
us, when shall these things be? and what shall 
be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of 
the world?" That the disciples joined these 
events together in their own minds, there 
can be little doubt. They had heard his dis- 
courses, which fixed his coming at the end 
of the dispensation of the kingdom, and 
they could not do otherwise than connect in 
their questions those things which he had 
so often assured them belonged together; 
namely, the coming of Christ, and the end 



8o SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



of the world. Nor did he disconnect these 
things in his answer. On the contrary, his 
answer assumed the correctness of the im- 
pression indicated in the questions that his 
coming was at the "end of the world." 
And surely, for the reasons already given, 
he did not mean, nor did the disciples under- 
stand him to mean, the end of the Jewish 
age. They may not have thought much of 
the different dispensations, at that time, as 
they probably knew but little, as yet, of the 
changes just at hand; but they must have 
known that the age of which he spoke, and 
which was to end at his coming in the glory of 
the Father with the holy angels, was the age 
of the kingdom of heaven on the earth — an 
age about to begin. But, however imperfect 
their knowledge of these things, the Savior 
himself understood the subject, and under- 
stood the bearing of the questions pro- 
pounded to him, and no doubt weighed the 
words employed in his answer, and antici- 
pated the interpretations of questions and 
answer in after times. Had he in any way 
disconnected what the disciples joined to- 
gether, their imperfect knowledge might be 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



81 



called into the account to explain their mis- 
take. But he did nothing of the kind. He 
carefully distinguished between the two ques- 
tions, but not between the items, in the last 
question. He connected the Second Com- 
ing with the angels, as closely with the "end 
of the age" in his answer, as the disciples 
did in their questions, or as he had previ- 
ously done in his parables. We are there- 
fore shut up to the conclusion that the Sec- 
ond Coming of Christ is to take place at 
"the end of the world," which is the end 
of the mediatorial dispensation — the end of 
time, when the kingdom of God, consum- 
mated in its earthly history and relations, 
shall be "delivered up," that "God may be 
all in all. 

And in confirmation of this, we shall ad- 
duce the very language of Christ, in regard 
to the "tribulation," and "signs of his com- 
ing," which has been relied upon to connect 
all these glorious manifestations of the Re- 
deemer's ultimate triumph, with the sadden- 
ing scenes of Jerusalem's desolation. 

6 



82 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter VI. 

AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 

HAVING seen the import and bearing of 
the answer the Savior gave the first 
question submitted to him by the disciples, 
as he sat on the Mount of Olives, and also 
the meaning and application of the phrase, 
"the end of the world," we come now to a 
study of the answer to the second question, 
and therefore to a consideration of the "trib- 
ulation of those days," and of the "signs" 
of the second coming. 

The question is, "What shall be the sign 
of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" 
The answer is embraced in verses 29-31: 
"Immediately after the tribulation of those 
days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon 
shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall 
from heaven, and the powers of the heavens 
shall be shaken : and then shall appear the 
sign of the Son of man in heaven : and then 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 83 



shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and 
they shall see the Son of man coming in the 
clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 
And he shall send his angels with a great 
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather to- 
gether his elect from the four winds, from one 
end of heaven to the other/ 1 

Here are several things which are evidently 
to follow each other in order, some of which 
will occupy no little time in their inception, 
development, and completion. The order 
maybe stated thus: 1. The tribulation; 2. 
The darkening of the sun and moon, and the 
falling of the stars; 3. The appearing of ' 'the 
sign of the Son of man;" 4. The coming of 
the Son of man; and 5. The sending forth of 
the angels to gather the elect. Whatever 
these successive occurrences mean, they re- 
quire much time — may we not say many cen- 
turies ? The supposed limitation of all these 
things to a brief space, because of the predic- 
tion in the thirty-fourth verse, will be fully 
explained in another chapter, and be shown 
to be no limitation at all as to time. But 
now we turn attention to the first item, which 
is, "The tribulation of those days." 



84 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



The first thing that strikes us forcibly in 
this answer is that every event named is after 
the "tribulation" is past. The tribulation 
began with the Roman invasion that laid 
waste the city and country of the Jews, and 
destroyed their temple. The popular idea is 
that Christ came in some way not defined, 
but called "figurative," for the purpose of 
bringing these disasters on the Jewish people 
as judgments or punishments for their unbe- 
lief. With all respect for the learning and 
the critical skill employed in support of this 
hypothesis, we dissent from it totally. If this 
hypothesis were correct, we should expect 
the language to read, "Just before the tribu- 
lation of those days;" or, at least, "At the 
time or in the midst of the tribulation;" but 
that is not the reading. There is not a word 
or hint anywhere that Christ was coming to 
bring judgments on the Jews. This figment 
of a "figurative " coming for such a purpose 
is not only without foundation, but is contra- 
dicted by every word the Savior uttered in 
relation to his coming. There is a world of 
meaning in that little word "after," in this 
passage. The things to be studied were all 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 85 



" after the tribulation," and consequently 
were no part of the tribulation, as they neither 
preceded nor caused the tribulation, nor even 
accompanied it. The word "immediately" 
is not in the way, as we shall soon see ; but 
just now we need to take in the force of the 
word "after." The evangelist Mark, as well 
as Matthew, uses this word ; and Luke gives 
the same order of events, without reporting 
in full. 

Then, since it is settled that at this point 
in his discourse our Lord had passed by the 
destruction of Jerusalem, and the attending 
and ensuing 1 ' tribulation," without author- 
izing the expectation of his coming, and pro- 
ceeds to declare what should come to pass 
beyond that tribulation, it becomes necessary 
that we. determine what constituted the "trib- 
ulation of those days," and how long it was 
to last. 

If we have read correctly the answer to 
the first question, and the general remarks 
preceding that answer, it is clear that the 
tribulation was not to be over in a short 
time. All the ills of the times — the war, 
famine, pestilence — the fall of the city ; the 



86 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



destruction of the temple ; the bloodshed, the 
rapine, the desolation of the land, and the dis- 
persion of the people, were only the " begin- 
ning of sorrows. 0 The setting up of "the 
abomination that maketh desolate " was to be 
no transient evil. But for a particular state- 
ment of the ' 1 tribulation " we turn to Luke 
xxi, 24 : "And they shall fall by the edge of 
the sword, and shall be led away captive into 
all nations : and Jerusalem shall be trodden 
down of the Gentiles, until the times of the 
Gentiles be fulfilled." Now let us look at 
these particulars : 

First. 4 ' They shall fall by the edge of the 
sword." This relates to the destructiveness 
of the war. It has been estimated that more 
than a million perished in all during the cam- 
paigns under Vespasian and Titus, resulting in 
the destruction of the city and temple. But 
this was not the end of this part of the tribu- 
lation. Perhaps as many or more were slaugh- 
tered in the subsequent rebellions and subju- 
gations, including the final overthrow of the 
Jewish armies, led by the Son of a Star> when 
Adrian's army completed the desolation begun 
so long before. This final catastrophe oc- 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 87 



curred about A. D. 135. We have less 
knowledge of its details than of the earlier 
conflicts, as Josephus was dead, and no suc- 
cessor arose to continue the story of the Jew- 
ish wars ; but in the interpretation of the pre- 
diction, "They shall fall by the edge of the 
sword/' these repeated subjugations, and es- 
pecially this last one, which probably surpassed 
all the others as a literal fulfillment, ought 
not to be overlooked. 

Secondly. "And shall be led away captive 
into all nations." The overthrow of the Jews, 
A. D. 70, in a comparatively small way, ful- 
filled this part of the prophecy. The Jews 
were scattered after the destruction of the city, 
to some extent. Captives taken in arms, and 
not put to death, were sold into slavery. But 
this was not the general dispersion. Titus 
did not carry off the Jews as a nation. He 
permitted them to live in Judea, and even to 
settle among the ruins in Jerusalem. He 
also, as before remarked, allowed them to es- 
tablish their Sanhedrim in Samaria, where also 
the patriarch established himself at the head 
of religious affairs. And the Jews that left 
the country, and settled in Cyprus, and in 



88 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, and in Africa, 
did not go as slaves, but as tradesmen and 
merchants; so that, as we have seen, in a 
few years, the nation was turbulent and 
threatening in its attitude, and giving no 
little trouble to the Romans. And when 
their last effort for freedom was made, they 
were strong enough to seize nearly the whole 
land, and to cost the Romans an immense 
sacrifice of life and treasure, and to require 
the presence of Adrian's greatest general — 
Julius Severus — to overcome them. But this 
was finally accomplished, with unprecedented 
slaughter, and then the nation, as such, was 
overthrown indeed. After this the remains 
of the temple, which Titus left, were torn 
out, and the foundation plowed. Then, also, 
it was that the name of the place was changed, 
and called Colonia ALlia Capitolina, in honor 
of the god to whom it was dedicated, as a 
Roman city, and whose temple was built 
where the Jewish temple had formerly stood. 
This completed the prophecy in regard to 
"the abomination of desolation standing in 
the holy place." And then, also, it was that 
the nation was "led away captive/' for the 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 



89 



masses of the people were sold into slavery, 
until the slave-market was glutted. Adrian 
forbade the Jews entering the city, even to 
weep over the ruins of the sacred places. 
And now they became objects of hatred to 
the Romans wherever they were found. They 
suffered untold hardships in Alexandria and 
in Cyprus and wherever they took refuge, 
or were carried into slavery. In every place 
they became a hissing and by-word. Thus 
towards the middle of the second century 
of the Christian era, under the reign of 
Adrian, this part of the predicted "tribula- 
tion" was fulfilled. "They were led away 
captive into all nations." 

Thirdly. "And Jerusalem shall be trodden 
down of the Gentiles." Jerusalem, and the 
whole of Palestine, have been occupied by 
Gentiles from the dispersion of the Jews, 
above mentioned, till the present day. The 
Romans, Persians, Saracens, and Turks, have 
alternately exercised jurisdiction, fulfilling to 
the letter this specification in the prophecy. 
And there is peculiar force in the words, 
"shall be trodden down." The occupancy 
of the country by Gentiles is not the whole 



90 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



of the disaster. It has been "trodden down.*' 
The march of armies over it has been fre- 
quent and crushing. The populations in- 
habiting it have not been thrifty. The an- 
cient fertility of the soil has long since 
departed. The city of Jerusalem has never 
approximated its former splendor. Every 
thing wears an aspect of weariness. Com- 
pared with its olden fruitfulness, the whole 
land is desolate. The prophecy of Daniel, 
as well as that of Jesus, is accomplished. 
"And for the overspreading of abominations 
he shall make it desolate, even until the 
consummation, and that determined shall be 
poured upon the desolate." 

Fourthly. "Until the times of the Gen- 
tiles be fulfilled." This points out the con- 
tinuance of the "tribulation," indicating its 
duration. That it was to be a long-con- 
tinued tribulation, including a series of dis- 
asters, has become plain enough; but here, 
for the first time in the discourse, we find a 
positive statement touching this point. But 
this does not imply that the Jews were to be 
incessantly falling by the sword through all 
the centuries of their tribulation. This part 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 91 



was accomplished within about one hundred 
years after the prophecy was delivered. Nor 
does it mean that the Jews were to be 
"slaves" all this time, or kept in a state of 
"captivity," otherwise than in the dispersed 
condition in which they remain, although for 
many years, and in many countries, they were 
more literally captives than now. Their dis- 
persion among the nations is, however, to 
this time, a part of the "tribulation." But 
the desolation of their father-land, and its 
being "trodden down" by the Gentiles, was 
to continue, as it does continue, and will, 
"until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." 
Then, and not till then, will "the tribulation 
of those days" be over. 

But what is meant by "the times of the 
Gentiles being fulfilled?" Some think it 
means the general conversion of the Gentiles. 
Others, that the Gentiles are to have the 
privileges of the Gospel as long as the Jews 
were the peculiar people. It can not mean 
less than till all the Gentile nations have the 
offer of the Gospel. Possibly it alludes to 
w r hat is said in verse fourteenth with refer- 
ence to the Gospel being " preached in all 



92 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the world for a witness unto all nations." 
No one supposes the period is yet past. Paul 
speaks of the same thing, Rom. xi, 25: "For 
I would not, brethren, that ye should be 
ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be 
wise in your own conceits, that blindness in 
part is happened to Israel, until the fullness 
of the Gentiles be come in." This follows 
the prediction of the conversion of the Jews, 
which will occur with the removal of their 
"blindness," or hardness, as the word im- 
plies; and that is to follow the "fullness of 
the Gentiles." It follows, therefore, that so 
long as the fullness of the Gentiles is not 
come in — so long as Gentile nations remain 
without the Gospel — and so long as this judi- 
cial "blindness" is upon the Jews, and Jeru- 
salem is trodden down of the Gentiles, "the 
tribulation of those days" is not past. 

It is objected to this long continuance of 
the tribulation, that its measurement was to 
be counted by "days" and not by years and 
centuries. The objection is futile, since the 
phrase "those days" need not be taken in 
the restricted sense supposed by the objector. 
The meaning depends on the standard of 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 93 



measurement you have in mind. If you are 
only speaking of trivial events, beginning and 
ending in a few hours, the expression, "those 
days, " will be correspondingly limited and 
definite. But if you are considering great 
national affairs, involving the rise and fall of 
dynasties, and stretching out through many 
centuries, the phrase, "those days," while 
equally appropriate, will take a very different 
meaning. Thus it was with our Lord. While 
sitting there on the side of Mount Olives, 
with the turrets and domes of the grand old 
city in full view, and his thoughts busy with 
the sacred associations of the past, with the 
scenes just witnessed in the temple and with 
the coming desolation which had already 
caused him to Aveep, and with the future of 
his own nation all spread out before him, 
with their captivity and dispersion and their 
Avanderings down through the ages till "the 
times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled, 55 he 
spoke of what should happen "after the trib- 
ulation of those days." His gaze was upon 
distant scenes. Before his mental vision 
rolled the teeming populations of the whole 
earth, with the struggles of mighty nations, 



94 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



and the goings forth of "his kingdom," and 
the fluctuations of the conflict with the pow- 
ers of darkness, as century after century 
rushed into the past, even " until the times 
of the Gentiles should be fulfilled." And 
looking beyond all this he saw the "blind- 
ness" depart from his chosen race, the cloud 
lifted beneath which they had so long wan- 
dered in darkness, and "the children of 
the stock of Abraham " accepting the glad 
tidings they had so obstinately spurned, and 
joining in the shout which had so recently 
saluted his ears, "Blessed is he that cometh 
in the name of the Lord." Themes like these 
were worthy the occasion, and worthy the 
speaker, and worthy the sacred record. They 
account for the elevated tone of the discourse, 
for its sublimity of thought and expression, 
while to restrict the language to the local ca- 
lamities of a single capture of the city, belit- 
tles the occasion, and dwarfs the prophecy 
and all connected with it. 

It is sometimes thought that the introduc- 
tion of the "parable of the fig-tree," in con- 
nection with the things to happen after the 
tribulation, limits the time of the tribulation 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 95 



and all that follows to a very short space of 
time. This, however, is without force, as the 
fig-tree is a general illustration of the means 
by which the approaching fulfillment of any 
part of the prophecy may be known. The 
signs of the Roman invasion were to be looked 
for and interpreted as the certain precursors 
of a real disaster. There would be no threat- 
ening, followed by adjustment of difficulty 
and peace. The hostile attitude of the ene- 
mies of the nation was to be taken as mean- 
ing all the severities of war. Thus the disci- 
ples were to be saved from reliance on the 
arts of diplomacy or the wisdom of their 
rulers in averting the calamity, and to keep 
themselves in readiness for flight, which was 
the only means of safety. And the same 
principle applies to the times following the 
tribulation. The day and hour can not be 
given beforehand, but, as the tender branch 
of the fig-tree betokens the nearness of Sum- 
mer, so the coming in of the "fullness of the 
Gentiles," and the evangelization of the scat- 
tered Jews, will forecast the coming of the 
events which make up the closing scene. 

The first thing mentioned by the Savior 



96 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



as following the tribulation is the darkening 
of the sun and moon and the falling of the 
stars. It is not essential that this language be 
taken in a strictly literal sense, though it is 
not improbable that in the final adjustment of 
the elements for the conflagration which is to 
follow, phenomena will be seen presenting 
such appearances as would suggest such ex- 
pressions for their description. 

The first impression with every reader 
must be that the very grandeur of the scene 
depicted should carry us away from the local 
disorders of the Jews — away from the confines 
of Judea and the violent coming of the Ro- 
man army — away from the petty contests be- 
tween the tribes of men to the preparations 
for the coming of the grandest day in the his- 
tory of the world, the day of the coming of 
the Lord ; and the most critical analysis of 
the language and the connection will confirm 
this first impression. The fact that it follows 
the tribulation necessitates the abandonment 
of the preposterous notion that Christ was 
only speaking of the portents of his coming 
to destroy Jerusalem. And let no one. be 
overawed at this point by any array of great 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 97 



names that may be brought to support the un- 
meaning "figurative" coming of Christ. The 
words of the divine Lord are before us, and 
what he says must guide us, whether it be in 
the track of popular thinking or in ways that 

we knew not. 
1 

It is true that similar language is found in 
the Old Testament prophecies, where such 
phenomena in connection with the heavenly 
bodies are mentioned, when only national 
judgments or revolutions are meant in the 
application. But this does not prove that the 
Savior referred to the same judgments on the 
same nations or to similar ones. Some of the 
revolutions described by the old prophets 
were past when Christ spoke. His eye was 
on the future — the distant future — as we are 
bound to believe. Let us, then, admit that 
he used highly figurative language, with ref- 
erence to great changes in distant ages, hav- 
ing in view revolutions among nations which 
mark an epoch in the world's history, near 
the " times of the fullness of the Gentiles, " 
and what follows? Why, that Jesus Christ 
used language, with reference to the affairs of 
the nations, similar to that employed by 
7 



9 8 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Isaiah, with reference to Babylon, Isaiah xiii, 
io ; and with reference to Idumea, Isaiah 
xxxiv, 4 ; and by Ezekiel with reference to 
Egypt, Ezek. xxxii, 7 ; and by Daniel with 
reference to Jerusalem. But it does not fol- 
low that what he said must come within the 
borders of Judea or within the space of forty 
years. This, as before said, belittles the 
whole subject. 

It will now be seen that there is no issue 
in regard to the nature of the language before 
us, as all agree that it is highly figurative. 
The only question is as to the application of 
it. Many see in it nothing broader or grander 
than premonitions of the disaster at Jerusa- 
lem. These overlook the nature of the tribu- 
lation and its extent, and misapprehend the 
word "generation" in the verse below. 
Others, apparently feeling bound in some way 
to interpret the entire discourse, in its first 
meaning, as relating to the downfall of Judaism 
and the catastrophe to the city — perhaps 
swayed by the same oversight and misappre- 
hension, have invented a double meaning ; 
and, while they apply it locally in an inferior 
sense, they concede that the scene portrayed 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 



99 



swells incomparably beyond any thing known 
in the history of the Jews or in the over- 
whelming of their armies and city. These, 
indeed, insist that the language all applies to 
Jerusalem, but they make the local judgment 
upon that city a type of the final judgment at 
the last day. And, of course, this interpre- 
tation admits a " figurative " coming of Christ, 
which it makes typical of a literal coming ! 
It is easy enough to see how literal things or 
facts can typify spiritual things, but how a 
"figurative" action, if there be any such 
thing, can typify a literal event or action, is 
not so plain to men of ordinary perception. . 

Let us then suppose that the language in 
question is figurative — that, when it is said, 
"The sun shall be darkened, and the moon 
shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall 
from heaven, and the powers of the heavens 
shall be shaken," the Savior, like the prophets 
of old, had in view some revolutions which 
should take place among the nations of the 
earth — to what period in the world's history 
shall we look for the accomplishment of these 
revolutions ? Nothing answering to so lofty 
a description occurred when Jerusalem fell 



ioo SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



under Titus ; and that could not have been 
the time, because the " tribulation of those 
days" was not then past. Nor is the time 
yet come for the same reason. We insist 
upon it, that whatever peoples or nations be 
affected by these predicted convulsions, the 
time can not be here until after the "tribula- 
tion," which brings us down to the period of 
the "fullness of the Gentiles." We protest 
not against receiving the words as figurative, 
but against disturbing the order of events as 
laid down by our Lord. 

In searching for an application of these 
words of Christ to the condition of the nations 
very late in the dispensation and near the 
conversion of the Jews, we are reminded of 
similar language in the book of Revelation, 
which demands a similar application. "And I 
beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, 
lo, there was a great earthquake ; and the sun 
became black as sackcloth of hair, and the 
moon became as blood, and the stars of 
heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree 
casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken 
of a mighty wind ; and the heaven departed 
as a scroll when it is rolled together ; and 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. IOI 



every mountain and island were moved out 
of their places. And the kings of the earth, 
and the great men, and the rich men, and the 
chief captains, and the mighty men, and every 
bond man, and every free man, hid themselves 
in the dens and in the rocks of the mount- 
ains ; and said to the mountains and rocks, 
Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him 
that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath 
of the Lamb : for the great day of his wrath is 
come; and who shall be able to stand?" 
(Rev. vi, 12-17.) The location of this scene 
proves its relation to the events which mark 
the close of the dispensation. It is under the 
opening of the sixth seal. 

There are three ways of marking the epochs 
of time during the Gospel age — the opening 
of seven seals, the pouring out of the seven 
vials of wrath by seven angels, and the sound- 
ing of seven trumpets by seven angels. 
The whole dispensation is covered by these 
seven epochs. It is not necessary to suppose 
that the seals, the vials, and the trumpets cor- 
respond all the way through, as under each 
method of marking epochs the vision unfolds 
a different series of events ; but they all ter- 



102 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



minate at the same point. They all pass over 
the dispensation, and each brings its own se- 
ries of events to the end of time. The last 
" seal " corresponds with the 'Mast trumpet, 5 ' 
in chronological arrangement, and each brings 
us to the Advent and the resurrection. It is 
evident, also, that events under the sixth seal 
and those under the sixth trumpet agree to- 
gether as to time. Let the reader compare 
them. A fuller enumeration is given under the 
trumpet than under the seal, but the effect is 
the same. The scene under the sixth trumpet 
opens with representations of the loosening 
of angels bound in the great river Euphra- 
tes, which is the symbol of the Mohammedan 
power, and closes with an angel standing on 
the land and sea and swearing that time shall 
be no longer. The impression is that of dis- 
aster and mourning, of great anxiety and dis- 
may — just as under the sixth seal. May it 
not be the final struggle in which all forms of 
national religion go down together ? And if 
so, is not this the time when the sun and 
moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall 
fall, and the powers of the heavens shall be 
shaken ? John heard the prophecy of Jesus, 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 103 



and did not forget it when he saw in the vis- 
ion the opening of the sixth seal. Then, if 
the prophecy of Christ and the vision of John 
relate to the same things ; and if the sixth 
seal and the sixth trumpet agree ; and if the 
river Euphrates is the symbol of the Moham- 
medan power ; and if the breaking down of 
that power which now dominates the Holy 
Land be the end of the "tribulation," as it 
ends the period of Jerusalem's being "trod- 
den down of the Gentiles," do we not find 
too many converging lines of light pointing 
to the fulfillment of this prophecy, "immedi- 
ately after the tribulation of those days," to 
admit of a single doubt ? And it should not 
be forgotten that under this same seal the 
vision points to four angels standing on the 
four corners of the earth, holding the four 
winds, and commissioned to destroy the earth; 
and that at this juncture another angel appears 
and calls upon the four angels holding the 
four winds to desist till the sealing of the 
servants of God might be completed. Then 
follows the sealing of the tribes of Israel. 
May not this point to the conversion of the 
Jews, as the last triumph of the Gospel, just 



104 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



before time ends with the opening of the last 
seal and the sounding of the last trumpet ? 

Two more points shall end this extended 
chapter. The next statement in the passage 
before us is not susceptible of positive expla- 
nation. "Then shall appear the sign of the 
Son of man in heaven." This sign appears 
to come after the shaking of the powers of 
the heavens, so as not to be identified with 
the phenomena just mentioned. It is useless 
to conjecture what it shall be like. And yet 
it is barely possible that the things symbol- 
ized by the appearances noted in the sun, 
moon, and stars may be taken as the "sign" 
betokening the Son of man in the heavens. 
But, following that "sign," whatever it may 
be, something of fearful import must be ex- 
pected. "Then shall all the tribes of the 
earth mourn." This "mourning" may have 
some relation to what follows the release of 
Satan from his prison, and the deceiving of 
the nations, and the gathering of the hosts 
of sin for the last conflict when the camp of 
the saints shall be encompassed. And it is 
not at all unlike the alarm and dismay de- 
picted under the sixth seal and the sixth 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 



trumpet. But in the midst of this wide-spread 
mourning the Great Event of all breaks sud- 
denly upon the world: "And they shall see the 
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven ivith 
power and great glory." Here all metaphors 
drop. Rhetorical flourishes sink out of sight. 
The plainest assertion of the visible coming 
of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven, 
when every eye shall see him, by its simple 
majesty and unadorned sublimity, surpasses 
the highest ornaments of human speech. 

Following this is the mission of the angels. 
1 'And he shall send his angels with a great 
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather to- 
gether his elect from the four winds, from one 
end of heaven to the other." Here, again, 
our expositors who favor the " figurative " 
advent are compelled to limp. They are 
obliged to find "figurative" angels, as well 
as a "figurative" Christ and a "figurative" 
coming. This they do in the persons of Gos- 
pel ministers. Some mention the apostles; 
but these were nearly all dead, having com- 
pleted their mission before Titus came to Je- 
rusalem. The idea is that after the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem the ministers of the Gospel 



lo6 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



went out, sounding the Gospel trumpet 
among the nations, and gathering the elect 
into the Church. But this very thing they 
had been doing for forty years. Paul's grand 
journeyings by land and sea were past, and 
the crown of martyrdom was his before the 
storm of wrath came down upon Jerusalem. 
These expositors tell us much about the es- 
tablishment of the kingdom of God after 
Jerusalem fell, but they fail to inform us in 
what sense it was then established, in which 
it had not been established before. As we 
have seen, the kingdom of God came with 
power while those who heard Christ were 
yet living. It came at the appointed time, 
before the preaching began under the world- 
wide and age-lasting commission ; and under 
it the apostles had gone to the Gentiles with 
such success that Jerusalem was scarcely supe- 
rior to Ephesus or Corinth as a center of evan- 
gelizing influences. Hence this notion of 
the "angels" and the "trumpet," and the 
gathering of the "elect," is absurd upon its 
face, and contrary to the facts in the case. 
Christ himself had explained this mission of 
the angels in his exposition of the parable of 



AFTER THE TRIBULATION. 107 

the tares and the wheat. "The harvest is the 
end of the world; the reapers are the angels. " 
And here they are, sent forth to the " har- 
vest. ,, The coming of the Lord, the clouds, 
the angels, and the sound of the trumpet, are 
all found in the epistle to the Thessalonians 
at the time of the resurrection of the dead ; 
and so in the parable, and so here, and so 
everywhere. The trumpet wakes the dead, 
and the dead come forth to judgment 



108 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter VII. 

"THIS GENERATION." 
HE last apparent difficulty in the way 



of the interpretation we have given of 
the coming of the Son of man in the clouds 
of heaven is in the thirty-fourth verse, which 
says, "This generation shall not pass till all 
these things be fulfilled." It is argued that 
these words limit the previously described 
events, including the signs of the coming, 
and the coming of the Son of man himself, 
to the period of the life-time of the people 
then living. That this verse has controlled 
many minds in this direction there is no 
doubt; and for us to pronounce that there is 
no force in the position, and no "ground for 
hesitancy, would be highly unbecoming. We 
would not speak with undue confidence 
where learned men have differed, nor would 
we dogmatize in the presence of serious 




"THIS GENERATION." 



questions of criticism, requiring the most 
careful and judicious investigations; but, hav- 
ing reached a conviction, not without weigh- 
ing the evidences, we dare not refuse to set 
it forth and maintain it. 

There are two points that will require 
attention; namely, the meaning of the phrase 
"all these things," and the meaning of the 
word " generation.' 9 The object is to ascer- 
tain the true application of this verse, and 
its bearing on our general theme. 

We find it possible to make two applica- 
tions of the words, "all these things." The 
first will make them correspond with the 
same words, found in the third verse, in the 
question, "When shall these things be?" 
The answer given to this question recognizes 
its allusion to the coming destruction of the 
city and temple; and, as we have seen, this 
answer is distinct from that given to the 
second question, with reference to the com- 
ing of Christ and the end of the world. If we 
thus separate these questions and answers, 
and restrict the "these things" in the verse 
in question to the "these things" in the 
question and answer above, w r e discover that 



HO SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the fulfillment of "all these things," will have 
nothing to do with the time of the coming 
of Christ in the clouds of heaven. And 
we are free to say that this seems preferable 
to the resort to the figurative coming of 
Christ at the time when Christ said he would 
not come. 

But we do not adopt this construction. 
The phrase, "all these things/' in our judg- 
ment, relates to the whole of the preceding 
part of the discourse, and therefore includes 
the destruction of the temple and the city 
of Jerusalem, the "tribulation of those days," 
"the sign of the Son of man in heaven," the 
coming of Christ, the sending forth of the 
angels, the great sound of the trumpet, and 
the gathering together of the elect of God. 
"Heaven and earth shall pass away," but 
the word of Christ shall not pass away, and 
if that word is fulfilled, "heaven and earth 
shall pass away" before "this generation" 
shall pass out of existence. What else can 
his language mean? If we understand him 
at all, the great thought which he utters and 
emphasizes is the permanency of "this gen- 
eration." It must last while heaven and 



"THIS GENERATION." 



ill 



earth endure. Whatever may befall it, it 
will not pass away. 

That this verse is a prophecy can not be 
called in question. But there is a question 
here that brings out the real point in issue — 
the turning, the deciding point in the inter- 
pretation of this passage. It is, What does 
this verse predict? It predicts one or the 
other of two things, namely, either the 
speedy fulfillment of "all these things," or 
the preservation of "this generation" through 
all subsequent time. If the former is the 
prediction, we must either restrict "these 
things" to the subject of inquiry in the first 
question, as above, or take the ground that 
the prophecy was a failure — false. Another 
alternative, which is proposed by some, is to 
apply the whole discourse, including the 
"tribulation," the "signs," and the coming 
in the clouds, to the period of the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, in a figurative sense. But 
this, as before shown, contradicts the Lord 
himself, distorts the order of the events, cuts 
down the tribulation to its mere beginnings, 
and leaves the mission of the angels utterly 
unexplained. We can not, therefore, con- 



112 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



sider this as at all practicable. Then shall we 
restrict " these things," so as to exclude the 
tribulation, the signs, the coming, and the 
gathering of the elect? If any good reason 
could be assigned for such restriction, we 
should not object, as no very serious exeget- 
ical or doctrinal difficulty would ensue; but 
there is no need for it in order to maintain 
the harmony or the integrity of the passage, 
while the natural order of the words, and 
the strictly grammatical construction, require 
the more comprehensive application which 
we have favored above. Then, we come 
face to face with the question, Does this 
verse predict the accomplishment of * * all 
these things'' within the life-time of the 
people then alive? If it does, the facts war- 
rant the assertion that it was false. No man 
of that day lived till "all these things" 
were fulfilled. The " tribulation of those 
days" is not fulfilled yet. This was amply 
shown in a preceding chapter. It is well 
known that that tribulation was to include 
the dispersion of the Jews, and the desola- 
tion of the Holy Land, during all the time 
that should elapse "until the times of the 



"THIS GENERATION." 



113 



Gentiles be fulfilled." Were the "times of 
the Gentiles fulfilled" within a single life- 
time? Did the captivity of the Jews, and 
the desolation of Judea, and all that made 
up that unparalleled tribulation, become past 
events in the life-time of the disciples? Paul 
said, many years after Christ's death, that 
4 'blindness in part hath happened to Israel 
till the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." 
Did that "fullness" come in, and that "blind- 
ness" cease, while the disciples were yet 
living? Who will affirm all this? And yet 
if it be not so, there is no possibility of 
claiming that "all these things" were ful- 
filled within the life-time of the people who 
heard the prophecy uttered. The people of 
that day passed away centuries ago, and 
many of "these things" are not fulfilled to 
the present hour. 

Then shall we abandon the prophecy, and 
throw away our Bibles, and give up our 
faith in Christianity, and plunge into the 
ocean of grand uncertainties to which infidel- 
ity invites? Not yet. This prophecy is not 
a failure. What it predicts is to this day 

being fulfilled to the astonishment of the 

8 



H4 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



world. Its affirmation is not, that all these 
things shall come to pass within the brief 
space of a human life-time, but that "this 
generation" — this race of people, the Jews — 
" shall not pass," or cease to be a people, 
so long as any of these things shall remain 
unfulfilled; and in this sense, the facts of 
history attest its wonderful accuracy and 
faithfulness, and prove the divinity of its 
author. 

This interpretation, of course, turns upon 
the definition of the word "generation." 
This word admits of two meanings or appli- 
cations, and the question is, In which sense 
is it used in this place? It sometimes ap- 
plies to the people living at the same time, 
and then it expresses the average duration 
of human life, say thirty or forty years. At 
other times it applies to a distinct class of 
people, as the Jews, distinguished by descent 
or blood, or by some marked characteristic 
or quality. Hence we read of the "genera- 
tion of the righteous," the "generation of 
the ungodly," the "chosen generation," the 
"wicked and sinful generation/' the "gener- 
ation of them that know not God," and of 



"THIS GENERATION. 



us 



the "generation of vipers." The application 
is not to contemporaneous existence, but to 
the race or stock extending from age to age. 
This sense of the word is amply sustained 
by the best authorities, by Scriptural usage, 
and by the fact that it brings this passage 
into harmony with the scope of the Savior's 
discourse, without involving any absurdity, 
contradiction, or difficulty. 

The word "generation" here means the 
Jews as a race. The passage predicts their 
preservation as a distinct people through the 
coming centuries, and in this sense no man 
questions its fulfillment. The subject of dis- 
course was the future of this people, the 
Jews, and their unexampled and protracted 
tribulation. Their temple and city were to 
be destroyed; their whole polity, civil and 
ecclesiastical, was to be overthrown : their 
land was to become desolate and the people 
scattered to the ends of the earth, and become 
a hissing and a by-word among the nations; 
and this condition of things was to last till 
the " times of the Gentiles be fulfilled;" and 
yet, through all tl\ese distressing afflictions, 
''this generation," the Jews, was to be pre- 



It6 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 

served as a people! And has it not been 
preserved ? Is not the condition of that 
people to-day a standing testimony to the 
truthfulness of our Lord's prophecy, and to 
the rightfulness of his claims to the Mes- 
siahship ? 

The word translated "generation" has 
several forms in the original, all from the 
same root. In this verse it is genea, from 
ginomi) and is defined by the lexicographers, 
a generation, descent, succession; birth, par- 
entage; a race, breed, kind, sort, species." 
The other forms of the word are genos and 
gemma, both derivatives from ginomi. 

The radical idea is, something that is gen- 
erated or produced, bearing the nature or 
qualities of the parentage or producing 
power. It is, therefore, variously applied to 
a single life, to a race, or breed; or species; 
and it aptly expresses the idea of a line of 
descent. Thus Paul understood it when he 
said, Acts xiii, 26: "Men and brethren, chil- 
dren of the stock of Abraham." Here the 
word rendered stock is genos, which is sub- 
stantially the same word, and may be used 
interchangeably with genea. In Matt, xxvi, 



"THIS GENERATION." 



117 



29; Mark xiv, 25; and in Luke xxii, 18, 
this word, in the form of genema, is rendered 
" fruit," and expresses the " fruit of the 
vine;" in Matt, iii, 7, it is "generation," 
applying to the "generation of vipers;" and 
the same in Matt, xii, 34, and Matt, xxiii, 
33. But this same class of people, called 
the "generation of vipers," is called an 
"adulterous and sinful generation," as in 
Mark viii, 38, where the word is genea, the 
same precisely as in the verse under discus- 
sion, proving satisfactorily that these words 
are used interchangeably. So, also, do we 
find genea in Matt xi, 16, in Luke vii, 31, 
in Matt, xvii, 17, in Matt, xii, 39, Acts ii, 
40, and in many other places. In most of 
these instances the idea of race or kind is 
much nearer the thought than mere contem- 
porary life. Indeed, this idea must have the 
preference in a large number of places where 
the word occurs; and especially is this true 
where the character or quality of the people 
is indicated. 

Again, in one place the Apostle Paul says : 
"Not that I had any thing to accuse my 
nation of — " Acts xxviii, 19 — using the com- 



Ii8 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 

mon word ethnos; and in another place he 
says: "I persecuted the Church of God and 
wasted it; and profited in the Jews' religion 
above many my equals in mine own nation.'' 
(Gal. i, 14.) Here for nation we have genos y 
which is rendered stock in Acts xiii, 26, and 
"generation" in 1 Peter ii, 9: "Ye are a 
chosen generation." Doubtless when Paul 
said "my nation," and "mine own nation," 
he meant precisely the same nation, the 
Jews; for in the strictest sense this was his 
nation — his race of people, the children of 
the stock of Abraham. In another place 
still, having in mind the qualities, perhaps, 
which the Savior called "evil" and "sinful," 
he says: "That ye may be blameless and 
harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, 
in the midst of a crooked and perverse 
nation — genea — among whom ye shine as 
lights in the world." Here we have nation 
as a translation of genea, the identical word 
in Matt, xxiv, 34, rendered "generation." 
Indeed, there is no room for serious doubt 
that the prophecy before us is a prediction 
of the permanency of the Jewish people, as 
a race, in spite of all the disasters before 



"THIS GENERATION. 



119 



them. Take an example of the use of this 
word not yet mentioned. In the preceding 
chapter, we have this remarkable statement : 
" Verily I say unto you, All these things 
shall come upon this generation. " (Matt, 
xxiii, 36.) There is no doubt that "this 
generation" here means the same as "this 
generation" in the place we are considering. 
But here the connection shows that the 
"generation" does not lose its identity within 
a limited number of years, as when taken in 
the ordinary sense of the word, as with our- 
selves. The discourse of which this saving 
is a part is one of the severest in its denun- 
ciations of the Jews that our Lord ever de- 
livered. He charges home upon the people 
around him the sins of their fathers for ages, 
as well as their own sins, showing that he 
spoke of the race. His language is, "Ye 
serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye 
escape the damnation of hell? "Wherefore, 
behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise 
men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall 
kill and crucify; and some of them ye shall 
scourge in your synagogues, and persecute 
them from city to city; that upon you may 



120 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



come all the righteous blood shed upon the 
earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto 
the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, 
whom ye slew between the temple and the 
altar. Verily I say unto you, All these 
things shall come upon this generation." 
Surely the Savior did not mean to say that 
4 'you men who now live, " slew Zacharias; 
for that was a deed done many years before 
any of them were born. But he was speak- 
ing of the Jews as a race, and identifying 
the race with the past, the present, and the 
future, and in this sense only did he address 
them when he said, "Whomj^ slew between 
the temple and the altar." They were about 
to experience a national retribution, the re- 
sult of the accumulated guilt of ages, a ret- 
ribution that would last for many hundreds 
of years; and with the whole sweep of God's 
providential dealings with this race of peo- 
ple in view, he said: "Verily I say unto 
you, All these things shall come upon this 
generation." This is all plain when we take 
gene a in its proper sense of "descent, race, 
breed, kind, or species." 

Then, if the passage in question must be 



"THIS GENERATION." 



121 



taken in the sense of a prediction of the 
speedy accomplishment of "all these things," 
it fails utterly, and infidelity triumphs, so 
far as this prophecy is concerned; but if it 
is a prediction of the wonderful preservation 
of the Jewish race, then it stands out before 
the world in the sublimity of a constantly 
fulfilling prophecy, proving the divinity of 
its author beyond question, and furnishing 
an argument for our faith which all the arts 
of unbelief can not successfully assail; an 
argument that weakens not with the lapse 
of time, but grows stronger and stronger as 
the years increase. 

Upon this point we can not be too ear- 
nest, for much depends upon the conclusion 
reached. It is no argument against our posi- 
tion that this word is elsewhere used with 
reference to a single life-time. This is freely 
admitted. Nor is it worth while for the ob- 
jector to array the names of eminent expos- 
itors who have taken different grounds. Some 
have done this. But the list of those who 
maintain the view here taken is equal to the 
other in every respect. And many whose 
general interpretation of the connection did 



122 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



not require it in order to obviate difficulties, 
or clear the way for their theories, have 
taken the word in the sense of "race" 
simply upon philological grounds, and entirely 
without reference to its bearing on the discus- 
sion we have in hands. Indeed, our position 
is amply sustained by the highest authorities, 
as well as necessitated by the conditions of 
the connection in which the word is found. 
It not only harmonizes the whole prophecy, 
but it saves it from the sneers of infidelity, 
and clothes it with a majesty that challenges 
the admiration of the thoughtful of every 
school and of every age. 



THE SHEEP AND GOATS. 



123 



Chapter VIII. 

THE SHEEP AND GOATS. 

THE Savior's direct answer to the ques- 
tion, "What shall be the sign of thy 
coming, and of the end of the world ?" which 
we have now seen points to events yet in the 
future, was followed by pointed warnings and 
suggestions of a practical character, with some 
minor parables illustrating the duty of watch- 
fulness. After these the discourse presents 
two very impressive parables, illustrating the 
kingdom of heaven, as displayed on earth, 
covering the entire period of the Gospel dis- 
pensation. 

The first is that of the ten virgins, in 
which the denouement relates to the coming 
of the Lord ; and the closing of the door 
against those not ready shows that that com- 
ing is the time of the judgment when the 
wise and virtuous share the joy of the Lord, 



124 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



and the careless and unbelieving are shut out 
forever. The next is the parable of the tal- 
ents, one of the most elaborate uttered by 
our Lord during his ministry. This parable 
describes a man of wealth about to travel into 
a far country, calling his servants, and giving 
them their duties and responsibilities to be 
observed during his absence. He then de- 
parts, and remains away a long time. The 
parable narrates how the servants severally 
performed their parts during his absence. 
But the point in the parable is that when their 
lord returned he proceeded at once to call his 
servants to an account for their conduct while 
he was away. ' 'After a long time, the lord 
of those servants cometh and reckoneth with 
them." The account given by each is repre- 
sented, and the reward bestowed on each is 
described. The last one was the " wicked 
and slothful servant." His condemnation is 
no unimportant part of the proceeding. 
"Take, therefore, the talent from him, and 
give it unto him which hath ten talents. For 
unto every one that hath shall be given, and 
he shall have abundance ; but from him that 
hath not shall be taken away even that which 



THE SHEEP AND GOATS. 



125 



he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable serv- 
ant into outer darkness : there shall be weep- 
ing and gnashing of teeth." 

Now, if any thing is clear in the teaching 
of these parables, it is that the coming of the 
Lord ends the dispensation of his kingdom 
in this world, and that it ends with the gen- 
eral judgment, followed by the rewards and 
punishments of eternity. In no other way 
can this distribution of rewards and punish- 
ments among the servants on the return of 
their lord, when he called them immediately 
to account, be explained. 

And then this parable, which so fully illus- 
trates human accountability, and the proceed- 
ings and results of the judgment at the com- 
ing of the Lord, is followed immediately by 
that grandest of all descriptions of the judg- 
ment-day, which is often called the parable of 
the sheep and goats. It is to this Scripture 
we direct attention in this chapter. 

This Scripture, Matt, xxv, 31-46, we have 
just remarked, is often called a parable. But 
is it, indeed, a parable? It neither begins nor 
ends as a parable. It is not announced as a 
parable, is not constructed like a parable, and 



126 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



will not bear interpretation like a parable. 
The only thing in it or about it that suggests 
the idea of a parable is the allusion to the 
shepherd dividing the sheep from the goats. 
This, however, does not make it a parable. 
It is simply a simile or a comparison, and that 
of a single point. If it had begun by saying, 
" The kingdom of heaven is like unto a shep- 
herd, who divideth his sheep from the goats ;" 
and if it had continued to speak of the par- 
ties divided as "sheep" and "goats," which 
was done but once ; and if it had closely ad- 
hered to such things as might naturally and 
truthfully be said of "sheep" and " goats," 
we should have seen in it all the characteris- 
tics of a parable. But these characteristics 
are wanting. The illustration drawn from the 
shepherd is nothing more than a simile in one 
verse, and in the next a metaphor. If the 
metaphor had been so extended as to form a 
parable, the teaching might have been the 
same ; but it was not so extended. In fact, 
it appears that the Savior, after the parables 
above mentioned, had reached a point where 
it was proper to dismiss parables and speak 
plainly of the proceedings of the day of his 



THE SHEEP AND GOATS. 



127 



coming ; and this he did in this paragraph, 
which closed his discourse on his Second 
Advent. 

"When the Son of man shall come in his 
glory." Thus this sublime scene opens with 
an adverb of time, which relates to a date or 
an epoch previously mentioned or understood. 
But no date has been given. "Of that day 
and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels 
of heaven, but my Father only," is the posi- 
tive assertion of Christ. But the order of 
events had been indicated and the signs given, 
so that the epoch might be traced in its rela- 
tions. This is all that can be done. And 
this opening word, 4 'when," relates to the 
epoch indicated previously ; that is, in the 
earlier part of the discourse, when he answered 
the question concerning "the sign of his 
coming and of the end of the world." That 
epoch is "after the tribulation" and after the 
"fullness of the Gentiles." It is at "the 
end of the world," which is the end of the 
Gospel age. 

This coming in his glory, "with all the 
holy angels with him," can be nothing other 
than his personal coming — his "coming in 



128 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the clouds of heaven, with power and great 
glory." If it mean not this, it is an unmean- 
ing riddle. "Then shall he sit upon the 
throne of his glory." This corresponds with 
Rev. vi, 16; and vii, 17; and xx, 1 1. The 
epoch, the order of events, and the proceed- 
ings, all point to the same throne and the 
same glory. 

If this be admitted, all real issues are set- 
tled. But some will not agree to it. Their 
creed is in the way. Universalism is endan- 
gered. Hence the "figurative" coming, 
which we have shown to be so groundless 
and so plainly contradictory to facts as to be 
the very thing which Christ warned his disci- 
ples against believing, is here thrust forward 
with pretentious distinctiveness, rendering 
even superfluous attention excusable. Of 
course, its advocates call this paragraph a par- 
able. But nothing further is needed on that 
point. We shall deal now with their inter- 
pretation. 

H. Ballou, one of the fathers of modern 
Universalism, says: "The time of Christ's 
coming in glory was the day of Pentecost. 
His holy angels, with whom he came, were 



THE SHEEP AND GOATS. 



129 



his chosen apostles. His glory is the Gospel 
of eternal life. Sheep and goats signify be- 
lievers and unbelievers. Right hand and left 
mean Gospel and law. The believer stands in 
the Gospel life ; the unbeliever is condemned 
already, and the wrath of God, in the letter 
of the law, abideth upon him."* 

The absurdity of this, and its untenableness, 
soon appeared to Mr. Ballou's associates and 
followers, and they adopted another "fig- 
urative " exposition. They took up with the 
idea, so generally favored by orthodox expos- 
itors, that a "figurative" advent of some 
kind took place at the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, and upon that notion they engrafted 
an interpretation of this alleged "parable," 
which became standard with the fraternity. 
It assumes that the coming was figurative; 
that the time was when Titus, with his army, 
came to Jerusalem ; that the gathering of all 
nations was simply an overlooking of human 
affairs by the Omniscient eye, with reference 
to the vast national interests involved in the 
gathering about Jerusalem ; that the division 



* Treatise on Atonement, p. 179. 

9 



130 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



between sheep and goats was national ; that 
calling those on the right hand into the king- 
dom was the calling .of the Gentiles to inherit 
Gospel privileges ; that the sentence upon 
those on the left hand was the rejection of 
the Jews and their expulsion from privileges 
previously enjoyed ; that the eternal life means 
Gospel or spiritual life, or Gospel privileges, 
on earth during the Gospel age ; and that 
everlasting punishment means age-lasting pun- 
ishment to the Jews, and other unbelieving 
nations that have not the Gospel. 

Were it not serious, such expositions 
would be amusing. Let us do this the honor 
of a brief consideration. 

1. The passage is not a parable, for rea- 
sons given. 

2. There is no intelligible recognition of 
the coming of the angels or of their mission. 

3. There was no gathering of the nations 
at Jerusalem, or any other place, for the pur- 
poses indicated. The separation of the na- 
tions into classes having and not having Gos- 
pel privileges required no "gathering," even 
in a figurative sense. The attempt which is 
sometimes made to give color to this by quot- 



THE SHEEP AND GOATS. 



ing from the prophet Zechariah is fallacious. 
The quotation is Zech. xiv, 2: "For I will 
gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, 
and the city shall be taken, and the women 
ravished ; and half of the city shall go forth 
into captivity, and the residue of the people 
shall not be cut off from the city." The 
gathering of the nations in the so-called para- 
ble is not a gathering "to battle," but to 
judgment. The passage quoted relates to a 
capture of the city when half the people were 
left. This can hardly apply to the capture 
by Titus, for he did not leave half the city. 
Although his destruction of it was not so 
complete as that which afterwards occurred, 
it was much greater than here described. 
Besides, this says nothing about the destruc- 
tion of the city. It only speaks of taking 
half the people captives. 

4. The ground of the division or separa- 
tion of the parties before the king is inappli- 
cable to the state of things assumed by this 
exposition. It is based distinctly upon their 
works. "Come, ye blessed," for ye have 
done thus and so. The Gentiles were not 
called to inherit Gospel privileges because of 



132 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



their previous good deeds. Nor was the sep- 
aration so rigid between the Jews and Gen- 
tiles as between sheep and goats. Besides, 
those on the right hand are called " right- 
eous ;" but no such designation could be 
given to the Gentiles, or any number of the 
Gentile nations, at the time of the alleged 
"figurative" advent and division. And yet, 
again, the good works accredited to the 
" righteous, " as the reason of their position 
of honor on the right hand, are plainly per- 
sonal works, and not of a public or national 
character. They are accredited with feeding 
the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting 
the sick and imprisoned. These actions re- 
late to personal character, and prove that the 
judgment was of individuals. And, still fur- 
ther, these good deeds were done unto Christ, 
in being done for those whom he acknowl- 
edged as his. Altogether, it is out of the 
question that this should apply to any "fig- 
urative" line of demarkation between the na- 
tions with respect to spiritual privileges in this 
world. The assumption is preposterous. 

5. Finally, this representation of the "life 
eternal" and the "everlasting punishment" 



THE SHEEP AXD GOATS. 



133 



is absurd and contrary to all the facts and in- 
timations of the case. Eternal life can not be 
predicated of nations. Neither can eternal 
punishment, except in an accommodated 
sense, where the nation is blotted out of ex- 
istence as a nation. But, in the case sup- 
posed, no such destruction took place. But 
this "exposition" alternates the personal and 
the national, as the necessities of the argu- 
ment require. In this regard it is both in- 
consistent and fallacious. There is no logical 
dexterity that can thus shift premises without 
betraying weakness. If nations, as nations, 
are gathered and divided, and if the proceed- 
ing is with nations, then nations should re- 
ceive the award in the outcome. It is not 
allowable to represent the transaction as a 
providential dealing with nations, and then re- 
sort to a definition of "life" and "punish- 
ment" that can only apply to individual ex- 
periences. 

Our " liberalistic " friends do not falter at 
ordinary incongruities, but when it comes to 
accepting the statement that the divine 
Teacher represented Providence as exercising 
kingly power over the nations by calling them 



134 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



before him in judgment, to be dealt with ac- 
cording to their deeds, as nations, and then 
as proceeding to attribute to them such ac- 
tions as are not and can not be national 
actions — such as visiting the sick and persons 
in prison, and to distribute rewards and pun- 
ishment for these actions in terms that can 
not apply to nations, — why, this is rather too 
much. Their " figurative " judgment becomes 
embarrassing, and the more so when it is 
called to mind that the punishment was "pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels !" It is a 
little embarrassing to represent a nation as 
sent away into " everlasting pnnishment," in 
this world, and at the same time hold that 
the Gospel of " eternal life" is, and ought to 
be, preached to that as to all nations. 

It is needless to pursue this exposition 
further. There is no consistency in it, and 
the foundation is taken away in the showing 
that there was no such thing as a "figura- 
tive" advent at the time Jerusalem was de- 
stroyed. The life of liberalism is centered in 
that figurative coming of Christ, which it 
affirms took place, when and where Christ 
himself so emphatically said, " If any man say, 



THE SHEEP AND GOATS. 135 



lo, here is Christ, believe it not." The de- 
struction of Jerusalem was a providential dis- 
pensation, as was the destruction of Babylon 
and Nineveh and Tyre, and any number of 
cities, and in this respect it was a "judgment." 
The hand of God was in it, as his hand was 
upon the Jewish nation always, and as it is 
he that lifts up and casts down the nations ; 
and in no other sense was there any "com- 
ing" or "advent" at that time. 

Others besides the "liberalistic " interpre- 
ters, who have seen a "figurative" advent in the 
calamities of that time, have confounded the 
coming of Christ "in his kingdom," which 
was, indeed, to be within the life-time of those 
that heard him, with his coming "in the 
clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." 
Mr. Ballou committed this blunder, but lo- 
cated the coming in the clouds where the 
coming in the kingdom belonged, and w r as 
not further out of the way than other figura- 
tive interpreters. With that coming in the 
kingdom, or coming of the kingdom of God 
with power, the "clouds" and "angels" and 
"trumpets" are not present; and the coming 
in the clouds with the angels is never said to 



136 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



be within the life-time of those that stood be- 
fore the Savior and heard his words. This, 
as we have seen, is not a spiritual coming nor 
a " figurative " coming, but a literal coming 
at the end of the world, to raise the dead, 
and wind up the affairs of his kingdom on the 
earth, as shall be done in the judgment-day. 
And this view will be further maintained in 
the succeeding chapters. 



RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. 



137 



Chapter IX. 

RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. 

IT is not essential to the chief design of this 
treatise that we enter into an exhaustive 
consideration of the questions relating to 
the restoration of the Jews to Palestine; and 
yet this subject has become so interwoven 
with theories of the Second Advent that we 
can not do justice to our theme without 
noticing it to some extent. 

Nearly all who contend for a premillennial 
advent of the Messiah, to set up a literal 
throne and kingdom in Judea, accept the 
prophecies in regard to the restoration of 
Israel in such a literal sense as to look for 
the literal gathering of the dispersed tribes 
into the land of their fathers, there to enjoy 
unexampled prosperity as a nation, in fulfill- 
ment of the covenant made with Abraham. 
There is much in this idea that is fascinating, 



138 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



and one can scarcely avoid wishing that such 
a visible verification of prophetic language 
might occur in the midst of this age of 
doubt and speculation and worldliness, as a 
rebuke to the unbelief of the times, and a 
vindication of the authority of the Sacred 
Writings. Certainly there is no ground for 
prejudice against such a consummation, and 
so far as we can see there is no important 
doctrine of the Christian system imperiled 
by the indulgence of such expectation. 

In the main this whole matter is left to 
the judgment of individuals. The Churches 
do not make it a dogma. Perhaps no de- 
nomination is entirely uniform in belief on 
the subject. In most of the evangelical 
Churches, some believe in the literal restora- 
tion of the Jews; some believe this resto- 
ration will take place prior to their conver- 
sion, while others think they will first be 
converted to Christ, and then be gathered 
back to the land of their fathers; and others, 
in the same communions, with equal free- 
dom and earnestness, reject the notion of a 
literal restoration altogether. And we are 
glad of this liberty; for we do not see how 



RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. 139 



it is possible for the Church, with any con- 
sistency, to put forth an authoritative declara- 
tion concerning the meaning of unfulfilled 
prophecy, without trenching upon the in- 
alienable rights of conscience. It is a. matter 
of opinion, in regard to which each one is 
left to follow the best light that presents 
itself to his own mind. 

That the verbiage of many of the ancient 
prophecies seems to teach the restoration of 
Israel in the latter days is not to be ques- 
tioned. The passages are numerous, and 
without citing them here, we remark in gen- 
eral that the view we take of certain New 
Testament language bearing on the subject 
will necessarily be decisive of our interpreta- 
tions of the Old Testament utterances. The 
questions which have occupied the attention 
of expositors, and which we must settle in 
our minds as the basis of our reasoning on the 
subject, are as to whether the promises to 
restored Israel may not apply to the spiritual 
Israel; and whether the conversion of the 
Jews to the Gospel of Christ will not fulfill 
all the predictions of the Old and New Tes- 
taments with reference to their restoration. 



140 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



The promises made to Abraham in the 
covenant which is termed " everlasting' ' form 
the basis of the prophecies in question, and 
point to the "seed" that shall inherit them. 
These promises contemplate both a literal 
and spiritual seed, with literal and spiritual 
privileges and blessings. The literal seed 
consists of the descendants of Abraham 
through Isaac and Jacob. These are the 
Jews without question. The spiritual ''seed" 
comprises all who sustain a vital relation to 
Christ. Such are Israelites indeed, in the 
Scriptural sense, whether descended from 
Abraham or not. The literal seed were to 
enjoy certain temporal advantages, as they 
did for many years, which were, however, 
typical of the spiritual advantages and bless- 
ing of the spiritual seed. And we may 
assume without danger of mistake that the 
spiritual seed were to be the more numerous, 
the more acceptable to God, and to enjoy 
the higher assurances of the divine favor. 
They were to be the true Israel, the chosen 
of the Lord, and heirs to the promises made 
to Abraham, in the highest spiritual sense. 
They were to be children of Abraham, the 



RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. 



141 



seed of Isaac and Jacob, not by blood, but 
by covenant relation, and in Christ they were 
to receive all the blessings promised to "the 
father of the faithful." It is not strange, 
therefore, that the spiritual prosperity of the 
Church of Christ should be described in 
prophetic vision, as the culmination of the 
glory of Israel. When the circumstances 
of the prophets are considered, and the 
nature of the Abrahamic covenant, as devel- 
oped under the Gospel economy, is taken 
into the account, it seems perfectly natural, 
and eminently proper, that the ancient seers 
should represent the glory of the house of the 
Lord, in the dispensation of the Spirit, under 
the imagery of Israel restored. That they 
did this in many instances no one denies. 
Then the only question is as to whether 
those passages in their writings which speak 
so plainly of the gathering of Israel out of 
the nations, and planting them in their own 
land in the enjoyment of peace and prosper- 
ity, may be taken as figurative representa- 
tions of the spiritual Israel, in the enjoyment 
of the spiritual privileges which constitute 
the ''blessing of Abraham." 



142 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Paul's argument in the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans will certainly bear this construction. 
His great thought is that the leading design 
of the calling and separation of the Jews, 
and of their special privileges, was accom- 
plished in the coming of the Messiah, who was 
constituted the head of a spiritual family, 
made up of the spiritual seed of Abraham. 
He shows that the natural relation to Abra- 
ham will no longer avail any thing, but that 
all spiritual blessings come to the Church 
through Jesus Christ, and may be enjoyed 
by all who believe in him. And he shows, 
further, that believing Gentiles were called 
to partake of the covenanted mercies which 
the Jews rejected. This is a fact which was 
historically developed in his day, and under 
his own ministry, and in the light of it he 
tenderly lamented the necessity laid upon 
him of pronouncing against his own people 
the solemn judgment of God, which set 
them aside from their peculiar relation, be- 
cause of their blindness and obduracy. In 
his estimation, the Jews lost the priority of 
inheritance in the Gospel kingdom through 
their unbelief, and the Gentiles entered into 



RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. 



143 



it by faith. The Jews were broken off from 
their own good olive-tree, and the Gentiles 
were grafted into it, not by an arbitrary de- 
cision of the Almighty, but in accordance 
with his eternal purpose to save the believer 
and condemn the unbeliever. And as this re- 
jection of the Jews was not an arbitrary act, 
it need not be regarded as final ; for, as a peo- 
ple, they may yet return, and repent, and 
secure the rejected mercy; that is, salvation 
through Jesus Christ. They were broken 
off by unbelief, and they may be grafted in 
again by faith. 

So far as Ave can see, the only thing in 
this Epistle which can be construed into a 
prediction of the restoration of the Jews as 
a nation, is this assurance here given that 
they shall again be grafted into the good 
olive-tree, from which they were broken off. 
But this is far from being a promise of the 
re-establishment of Judaism. It only looks 
to their being admitted to the spiritual rela- 
tion and. condition of believing Gentiles. 
When grafted in again, they come back, not 
to their ancient national privileges and temple 
services, but to the forfeited blessings to 



144 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



which the Gentiles succeeded. In other 
words, the "grafting in again" represents 
their conversion to Christ through the instru- 
mentality of the Gospel, instead of their res- 
toration to the home and institutions of their 
fathers. 

This same apostle's argument in the 
Epistle to the Galatians, too long to be more 
than summarized, bears upon the same point, 
and leads to the same conclusion. It shows 
that believing Gentiles become the "children 
of Abraham," the children of the covenant, 
and heirs to all the promises made to Abra- 
ham and his seed; that all distinctions on 
account of nationality, or outward condition 
are broken down; that a spiritual union with 
Christ meets all the conditions of spiritual 
blessings, according to the covenant with 
Abraham; and that people of all ^nations, 
kindreds, and tongues may secure that spir- 
itual union by faith. "Christ hath redeemed 
us from the curse of the law, being made a 
curse for us — that the blessing of Abraham 
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus 
Christ; that we might receive the promise 
of the Spirit through faith. . . . For ye 



RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. 



145 



are all the children of God by faith in Christ 
Jesus. For as many of you as have been 
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is 
neither bond nor free, there is neither male 
nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 
And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's 
seed, and heirs according to the promise." 

So, also, the author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, writing to converted Jews, quotes 
the prophecies of Jeremiah, which are often 
claimed as relating to restored Israel, and ap- 
plies them to the Christian economy as con- 
taining promises of spiritual blessings, fulfilled 
in all who receive the Gospel. The gift of 
the Holy Spirit, to abide with the Church as 
comforter and guide, meets the requirements 
of the promise of a new covenant ' 'with the 
house of Israel and the house of Judah." 
Why, then, may not the actual conversion of 
the Jews, and their participation in these new 
covenant privileges under the Gospel of Christ, 
meet all the requirements of the prophecies 
concerning their restoration? The typical 
character of the Jews, as a people, and of all 

their distinguishing services and ceremonies, 
10 



146 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



when rightly considered, will go far towards 
explaining the strong language used by their 
prophets, which, in the fulfillment, belongs 
not to the literal, but to the spiritual Israel or 
seed of Abraham. 

As before intimated, those who believe in 
the literal restoration of the Jews to their own 
land differ in regard to the means and design 
of that restoration. Some suppose they are 
to go back as Jews, and to re-establish them- 
selves as a nation and again set up the serv- 
ices of the temple. But how Christians can 
believe this is a mystery. Judaism was essen- 
tially typical, and therefore temporary. Its 
priesthood, its sacrifices, its ablutions, and its 
feasts, were all shadows of good things to 
come ; and those good things have come, and 
are all found in the Gospel of Christ. Such 
a restoration of the Jews as would be a resto- 
ration of Judaism would be a sad retrogression 
from the light and freedom of the Gospel 
to the darkness and bondage of the law. 
For this no Christian can pray ; and we can 
not believe that any such thing is the subject 
of promise or prophecy in the Scriptures. 
But it is extremely difficult to see any way 



RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. 



147 



of interpreting the prophecies so literally as to 
apply them to a literal return of the Jews to 
the Holy Land without accepting the literal 
restoration of the temple and its ceremonies, 
and the literal return of the Messiah to sit 
upon the throne of his father David in the 
city of Jerusalem. The literal return of the 
Jews, and the restoration of Judaism, and the 
literal reign of the returned Messiah in Jeru- 
salem as the prince of the house of David, are 
so linked together in prophecy that their sep- 
aration is impossible without the greatest 
violence. 

But some suppose the Jews will be con- 
verted first, and then return to the Holy 
Land. Evidently, if they are ever regathered 
by providential dispensation, it must be after 
abandoning that unbelief which brought deso- 
lation upon them. Their tribulation is parallel 
with their unbelief. And we should not won- 
der if a grand Christian nation shall yet 
occupy the land of Israel and cause the hills 
and valleys over which the incarnate Re- 
deemer wandered in his humiliation to be- 
come vocal with his praises ; but we can not 
see that the prophetic language requires the 



148 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Jews, any more than others, to do this. In- 
deed, if conversion to Christ and incorpora- 
tion into his kingdom by the new birth 
obliterates national distinctions so far as to 
constitute "one body" of all the faithful 
seed, making all that are Christ's the children 
of Abraham and heirs according to the 
promise, there is no necessity for the separa- 
tion of that people after their conversion ; nor 
can we see that the Jews, after becoming 
Christians, will have any desire to withdraw 
from their fellow-Christians in order to estab- 
lish a distinct community of their own. The 
impression with many is, that when the Jews 
are converted they will go back to Palestine 
and set up a Christian State, and become the 
leading heralds of salvation to the ends of the 
earth. This thought is sufficiently fascinating 
to elicit favorable consideration, but is lacking 
in support from the Scriptures. We see 
nothing like it in the discourses of our Lord 
or in the writings of the apostles. On the 
contrary, the idea that the Jews will be the 
last nation on earth to receive the Gospel is 
by no means obscurely hinted in the New 
Testament. They had the first offer of the 



RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. 149 



Gospel, and rejected it ; and now their turn 
to receive it will not come again till all other 
nations have had the offer of it. " The first 
shall be last, and the last first." 

The dispersion and desolation of the Jews, 
as is elsewhere shown, constitute important 
parts of their " tribulation," which is described 
by our Lord himself, as lasting "until the 
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." This 
places their conversion at a very late period 
in the Gospel age. So, also, the Apostle 
Paul declares that the "blindness" which has 
come upon them through unbelief — the judi- 
cial blindness which is part of their national 
retribution — is to last "until the fullness of 
the Gentiles be come in." Whatever "the 
fullness of the Gentiles" and "the times of 
the Gentiles" may include, these expressions 
undoubtedly refer to the preaching of the 
Gospel among all nations for a witness unto 
them; so that "the times of the Gentiles" 
are not fulfilled while some of the nations re- 
main destitute of the knowledge of Christ. 
This, therefore, sets aside the notion that the 
restored Jews are to be the harbingers of 
Christ in bearing his salvation to other na- 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



tions. But, as in the apostle's day, so in 
subsequent times there has been of the Jews 
"a remnant according to the election of 
grace." A few received Christ when he 
came ; some others were converted through 
the ministry of the apostles ; and all along 
through the centuries here and there a Jew 
has been converted, keeping before the Church 
the possibility of recovering the blindest and 
most inveterate of the enemies of Christ, and 
pointing to the day of power and grace when 
the great body of the descendants of Jacob 
shall be gathered into the Gospel kingdom. 

But, if we read the prophecies correctly, 
this grand consummation will be near the 
time of the end. It will be after the fullness 
of the Gentiles ; after the tribulation of the 
days of darkness and anguish to the Jewish 
race, and, therefore, near the time of the com- 
ing of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven, 
which is to take place "immediately after 
the tribulation. " We purposely speak upon 
this subject both briefly and frankly, feeling 
that every one who attempts to tread the 
ground of unfulfilled prophecy should do it 
with sincerity and modesty. This is not for- 



RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. 151 



bidden ground. No flaming sword warns us 
away. Whatsoever is written is written for 
our learning ; but these outline-pictures of 
coming events, thrown dimly upon the even- 
ing horizon — these shadowings forth of things 
yet unseen, except as revealed to prophetic 
eyes, were not intended for our gratification, 
but to furnish the basis for the cumulative 
proofs of the divinity of the Gospel with 
which the Church is to be favored in all the 
coming ages. 

But this remark should be added. Even 
a future gathering of the Jews in the Holy 
Land, if that should be found necessary to 
fulfill the prophecies, does not prove the 
premillennial advent; for all that such gath- 
ering implies, could come to pass, under 
Providential guidance, without the bodily 
presence of Jesus Christ on the earth. The 
acceptance of the proposition that the Jews 
will return does not carry with it the doctrine 
of the personal reign of Christ in Jerusalem. 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter X. 

THE MILLENNIUM. 

THE subject of the millennium has great 
fascination for many minds. The emo- 
tions which the contemplation of it excites 
are often elevated and devout, leading to an 
increase of religious fervor and activity in 
Christian duties. And especially is this true 
when the mind is not prepossessed with theo- 
ries which lead to controversy and beget a 
spirit of disputation, but simply looks forward 
to the day of the Gospel's triumph with ardor 
and hopefulness. But it is a subject which 
takes us into the realm of unfulfilled pro- 
phecy — enchanted ground— where it becomes 
us to step carefully and reverently, knowing 
that our perception of the lights along the 
pathway is necessarily imperfect. 

Ever since the days of the apostles the 
Church has looked forward to a better day, 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



153 



when the reigning powers of idolatry and su- 
perstition, and all forms of false religion, shall 
give place to the kingdom of God, and when 
Jesus Christ will be confessed as Lord among 
all the nations of the earth. It is impossible 
to interpret the Scriptures without antici- 
pating a universal diffusion of the knowledge 
of God and of his Son Jesus Christ, to the ex- 
tent that the religion of the Bible shall be- 
come the religion of mankind throughout the 
earth. But when shall this better day dawn ? 
By what agencies shall it be brought about ? 
Will the present dispensation of the Gospel 
be able to effect it? or must there be a super- 
sedure of the Gospel plan of evangelizing the 
world ? Are we authorized to expect the 
bodily presence of Jesus Christ on earth, to 
supplement the preaching of the Gospel for 
the conversion of the world? 

These are questions which have been be- 
fore the Church for ages, and, as they are 
answered in different ways, the people an- 
swering are known as Millenarians and Anti- 
millenarians, and as Pre - millenarians and 
Post-millenarians. The simple announcement 
that one is a Millenarian does but little to- 



T 54 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



wards indicating his opinions, as men of 
widely differing views will claim to believe in 
a Millennium of some kind. There are but 
few Christians who will accept the title of 
Anti-millenarians without some sort of qual- 
ification. The great division of the Church 
is into classes known as Pre-millenarians and 
Post-millenarians — a division w T hich does not 
follow denominational lines, or imply serious 
differences upon evangelical doctrines or on 
questions of vital piety and practical godli- 
ness. It is a difference in belief as to whether 
Christ's second coming will take place at the 
beginning or the ending of the millennial pe- 
riod ; and, of course, it involves different ideas 
of the character of the millennium — for a 
millennium, with Christ present in person, 
with the saints of all ages living in the resur- 
rection state, is widely different from one 
where Christ reigns spiritually in the hearts 
of his people, who yet live in their mortal 
bodies while he remains in heaven. It is to 
this division of sentiment our minds are turned 
in considering the second coming of the Son 
of man. Will he come in person and raise 
the righteous dead, and establish a literal 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



kingdom in this world, and reign a thousand 
years and thus subdue the world to himself? 
or will he come at the end of time and raise 
the dead and judge the world, and thus finish 
the history of earthly life by introducing the 
eternal state of retribution ? Pre-millennial- 
ists assert the former, and Post-millennialists 
the latter. 

The Pre-millennialist necessarily takes the 
ground that the Gospel is inadequate to sub- 
due the world to Christ; that it was not or- 
dained to that end ; that it was only given as 
a witness to admonish the nations, and to pre- 
pare the way for the coming of the Lord, 
somewhat as John the Baptist prepared the 
way among the Jews for the first appearance 
of the Messiah. This, of course, disputes the 
finality of the dispensation of the Spirit, and 
dampens the ardor of all expectation that the 
existing agencies in the Church are to suc- 
ceed in pulling down the strongholds of sin. 
In spite of all professions to the contrary, 
it discourages zeal in the missionary cause 
and in all efforts to build up the Church be- 
yond the limits of the present Christian civil- 
ization. It awakens a morbid feeling of dis- 



I 

156 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 

content — a feeling of fretfulness and impa- 
tience with what surrounds us in life, and an 
unhealthful looking for a vengeful visitation 
upon the prevailing ungodliness and upon un- 
godly men. It begets and fosters an unspir- 
itual longing to "know Christ after the flesh 
to see his person ; to bask in his favor, and 
share the honors which an earthly kingdom 
brings. That it kindles the fires of devotion 
and lifts the soul into an atmosphere of 
warmth and loyalty to Christ, and contempt 
for the world, is not disputed ; but whether 
the fervid zeal it inspires is as purely spiritual, 
as lofty and unselfish, as that which comes 
from calmly trusting the unseen Savior, and 
expecting his Spirit, through the Gospel, to 
conquer the world and bring the nations to 
acknowledge the cross as the power and wis- 
dom of God, is so extremely doubtful that 
the query is justifiable. 

The Pre-millennial Advent theory is based 
entirely upon a Scripture which is acknowl- 
edged by all to be very obscure, in addition 
to being found in the book of Revelation, in 
the midst of symbols extremely difficult of 
explanation and application. We say this 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



157 



without thinking to disparage the book, or 
intimating any thing against its authority or 
usefulness ; for there is much in it that is of 
great value in illustrating doctrines and in 
stimulating the zeal of the Church ; but there 
is no wisdom in founding upon its symbolic 
utterances important doctrines not found in 
the plainer Scriptures, and requiring obscure 
and difficult meanings to be forced upon pass- 
ages otherwise clear and easily comprehended. 
We say the theory in question is founded 
entirely upon the one passage. There is no 
doubt that this is correct ; for, while other 
passages are quoted in its support, and pressed 
into its service, not without violence, this is 
the only one that speaks definitely of the 
"thousand years " or hints that any such pe- 
riod separates the resurrection of different 
classes. In the absence of this passage from 
the Scriptures the theory would probably 
never have been invented, and certainly would 
have few, if any, advocates in the present day. 

We quote the passage in full, and shall 
endeavor to ascertain whether it is a sufficient 
foundation for the doctrine in question: "And 
I saw an angel come down from heaven, hav- 



153 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



ing the key of the bottomless pit and a great 
chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the 
dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, 
and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 
and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut 
him up, and set a seal upon him, that he 
should deceive the nations no more till the 
thousand years should be fulfilled : and after 
that he must be loosed a little season. And 
I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and 
judgment was given unto them : and I saw 
the souls of them that were beheaded for the 
witness of Jesus and for the Word of God, and 
which had not worshiped the beast, neither 
his image, neither had received his mark upon 
their foreheads or in their hands ; and they 
lived and reigned with Christ a thousand 
years. But the rest of the dead lived not 
again until the thousand years were finished. 
This is the first resurrection. Blessed and 
holy is he that hath part in the first resurrec- 
tion : on such the second death hath no 
power, but they shall be priests of God and 
of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand 
years. And when the thousand years are 
expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



159 



prison, and shall go out to deceive the na- 
tions which are in the four quarters of the 
earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them to- 
gether to battle: the number of whom is as 
the sand of the sea." (Rev. xx, 1-8.) 

The first thing necessary to the premillen- 
nialist is to find something which is not in 
the passage, which is not even implied in it, 
and for which there is no room in the order 
of events set forth — the personal Advent of 
Christ, at the beginning of the " thousand 
years" of Satan's bondage. It is therefore 
assumed by some that the " 'angel" which 
had "the key of the bottomless pit, and the 
great chain in his hand," was none other 
than Christ himself. The groundlessness of 
this assumption is so apparent that little time 
need be spent upon it. It would never have 
been thought of but for the emergency of 
the theorist. It might with equal propriety 
be assumed that in every instance in this 
book, where reference is made to an angel, 
Christ himself is meant, than which we can 
scarcely imagine a more glaring absurdity. 
Leading Pre-millenarians have felt this, and 
have claimed that since the archangel is 



160 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 

mentioned as accompanying the Lord in his 
descent to raise the dead, the appearance of 
the "angel" coming down from heaven in 
this vision, implies the presence and coming 
of Christ himself. But the improbability 
that the coming of Christ should take place 
at such a time, and for such a purpose, and 
under such conditions, and be entirely omitted 
in the vision portraying it, while a subordi- 
nate is made so conspicuous, is so great that 
we wonder that any student of the Scriptures 
can possibly believe it. And yet this im- 
probable notion of an unmentioned and un- 
implied advent is the sole foundation of the 
belief that Christ comes to reign on earth 
when Satan is chained. We humbly submit 
that the ground is too narrow and too flimsy 
to support a doctrine so far-reaching in its 
results. There is absolutely no intimation 
whatever in this celebrated passage of Scrip- 
ture, that Christ descends from heaven at the 
beginning of this "thousand years." 

The next point is the assumption that 
this "thousand years" separates the resur- 
rection of the righteous and that of the 
wicked. There is possibly a little more in 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



161 



the passage that seems to favor this assump- 
tion than the former, but even this is neither 
asserted nor implied. The word "resurrec- 
tion" is not applied to the "souls that were 
beheaded for the witness of Jesus." It is 
simply said of them that "they lived and 
reigned with Christ a thousand years." The 
numbers included in this company are not 
given ; nor is it at all hinted that it refers to 
all the righteous dead. Indeed, the specifi- 
cation of a particular class of the saved — 
them that were beheaded, the martyrs — im- 
plies that the great multitude of the saved 
were not included. And this implication is 
confirmed and placed beyond reasonable 
doubt, by the fact that in the scene de- 
scribed in the same chapter, as following the 
"thousand years," there is an appearance of 
Christ sitting upon "the great white throne," 
and a general resurrection, when the sea and 
death and hades all deliver up their dead, 
who are judged according to their works, 
while the intimation is clear that some of 
this company were "found written in the 
book of life." There is no reason for open- 
ing the "book of life" on that occasion, if 
ii 



162 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



all the righteous had been raised and crowned 
a thousand years, and if all the subjects of 
that resurrection and judgment were doomed 
to the ' ' second death. " 

We have said that the word "resurrec- 
tion" is not applied to the souls that lived 
and reigned with Christ. But it is supposed 
to be implied in the fact that they "lived 
and reigned/ ' This is not clear. If they 
did not, and could not in any sense, "live" 
without their bodies, the assertion that they 
"lived" might indicate that they were risen 
from the dead; but none who believe in the 
separate existence of souls will deny that 
the word "lived," as it occurs in this vision, 
is properly applied to "souls" "absent from 
the body, and present with the Lord." 

But the words, "This is the first resur- 
rection," are usually so applied as to denote 
a resurrection at the beginning of the "thou- 
sand years." Is this correct? Let the pas- 
sage be read again. "But the rest of the 
dead lived not again until the thousand years 
were finished. This is the first resurrection." 
Which is the first resurrection? Evidently 
that which occurred when "the rest of the 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



163 



dead lived again." This is the natural con- 
struction, and would not be questioned but 
for the seeming paradox, which arises from 
the supposed fact that those who "lived" 
and those who " lived again/' must be under- 
stood as living in the same sense; that is, in 
their bodies. But the paradox is not so 
violent as is the assumption that all the dead 
in Christ were raised up at the beginning of 
the thousand years — that none of the rest of 
the dead were "found written in the book 
of life," when the books were opened. And 
if this be the right construction, the meaning 
is that the living of the martyrs was not the 
resurrection, and that the "first resurrection" 
is that which comes when the thousand years 
are finished, and causes the dead to "live 
again." But if the phrase, "this is the first 
resurrection," be taken so far out of its con- 
nection as to apply to the "living" of the 
martyrs, it may imply that they are favored 
with a "resurrection" before the time of the 
general rising, which is "at the last day." 
The conclusion following this interpretation 
leads to no doctrinal or exegetical difficulty. 
It is not unreasonable, and certainly not un- 



1 64 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



scriptural, to suppose that the martyrs, as a 
class, are favored with some pre-eminence in 
the heavenly state. Their peculiar testimony 
to the truth is followed by distinction of 
some sort, and if it take the form of the 
restoration of their bodies in anticipation of 
the general resurrection, there is no ground 
of objection to it perceptible. Christ's glori- 
fied body is already in heaven, and so are 
the bodies of Enoch and Elijah, and there 
is little room for doubt that the bodies of 
the saints, whose graves were opened when 
Christ was crucified, and who came out of 
their graves after his resurrection, accom- 
panied their ascending Lord, with the con- 
voy of angels, and were presented as the 
beginning of that harvest which shall be 
gathered when the trumpet sounds. And 
if there are some glorified bodies from earth 
now in heaven — if a number awoke from 
earthly graves, and ascended with Christ, — 
it is not unreasonable to suppose that at 
some other grand epoch in the history of 
redemption, another company of saints — mar- 
tyrs for the truth — may be gathered from 
their graves by the angels of God, and be 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



165 



quietly borne to heaven, to live and reign 
with Christ, long before "the resurrection at 
the last day." Such an event would meet 
all the requirements of this Scripture, and 
much more consistently than by assuming 
an advent which is not mentioned, and 
which could not have been omitted if it had 
belonged to the scene described. 

The benediction pronounced upon those 
who share the "first resurrection " must not 
be overlooked. "Blessed and holy is he 
that hath part in the first resurrection/' If 
we suppose that this refers to the "rest of 
the dead/' as it seems to do, the sense is, 
that, though they do not share the peculiar 
honor of the martyrs, they are nevertheless 
truly blessed; and, although they rise in the 
general resurrection, in close connection with 
those whose doom is the "second death/' 
that ultimate result of sin shall have no 
power over them. They are as truly saved 
as if there were no second death. Their 
immortality is assured. They are "blessed 
and holy." And, on the other hand, if the 
phrase, "This is the first resurrection/' be 
so applied as to mean that the martyrs had 



1 66 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



risen at the beginning of the " thousand 
years," the assurance is given that their res- 
urrection, though special, and peculiar in 
that it occurred before the advent, is not 
inferior on that account, but is to them the 
final assumption of immortality and incor- 
ruptibility. We thus present two interpreta- 
tions, each consistent in itself, and each in 
better harmony with all the facts and terms 
of this remarkable Scripture, than that which 
places the advent of Christ, and the resur- 
rection of all the saved, at the beginning of 
the millennial imprisonment of Satan. In 
selecting the hypothesis most certainly cor- 
rect, we must be guided by the application 
of the word "this" in the clause that points 
to the " first resurrection." Taken in its 
immediate connection, it relates to the living 
"again" of the "rest of the dead" — the 
pious dead only being in mind — but it is not 
impossible that, as the whole picture is drawn 
in detached lines, this independent sentence 
may allude to the class distinguished in the 
heavenly state. We thus leave the subject, 
assured in mind that it is impossible to find 
any sufficient ground for an advent here, 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



167 



where it is neither named nor recognized, in 
fact, in process, or in result. It is needless 
to notice the other Scriptures which have 
been claimed as supporting the Premillennial 
Advent theory, as they are examined in 
other connections, and shown to yield a dif- 
ferent sense. 

But what of the millennium, if the idea 
of the coming of Christ at the imprisonment 
of Satan be abandoned? To state precisely 
the condition of the world at the coming of 
Christ, whether that coming be at the begin- 
ning or ending of the millennium in ques- 
tion, is one of the most difficult tasks the 
expositor of the Scriptures is called to per- 
form. Turn as he will, there are seeming 
contradictions to be encountered. To admit 
this is due to candor, and where it is not 
admitted we suspect the presence of prepos- 
sessions unfavorable to impartial exegesis. 

There are two classes of Scripture to be 
considered — those passages that represent the 
carelessness and worldliness of the unbeliev- 
ing and unready, and those that describe the 
universal triumph of the Gospel, and the 
prosperity of the Church in the latter days. 



168 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



By looking only at one class we get distorted 
views. Some of the first class look as if the 
world were never darker or more forgetful 
of God than in the hour when the Son of 
man shall come "as a thief in the night." 
"But as the days of Noah were, so shall also 
the coming of the Son of man be. For as 
in the days that were before the flood they 
were eating and drinking, marrying and giv- 
ing in marriage, until the day that Noah 
entered into the ark, and knew not until the 
flood came and took them all away; so shall 
also the coming of the Son of man be. Then 
shall two be in the field; the one shall be 
taken, and the other left. Two women shall 
be grinding at the mill; the one shall be 
taken, and the other left." This shows that 
some will be going on in the ordinary pur- 
suits of life, forgetful of spiritual things, as 
at the present time, and as in the time be- 
fore the flood. And that question in the 
parable of the widow and the unjust judge, 
"Nevertheless, when the Son of man com- 
eth, shall he find faith on the earth ?" looks 
in the same direction, and seems to suggest 
a doubt whether any will be found faithful. 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



169 



But these relate to the unbelieving. They 
give the worldly side of the picture. There 
is no doubt that "the day of the Lord" will 
come unawares upon many, and surprise 
them in their sins. But there is another side. 
The Church is to grow, and spread far and 
wide her holy influences, so as to leave the 
unthinking worldliness of the age without ex- 
cuse. "This Gospel of the kingdom shall 
be preached in all the world for a witness 
unto all nations." "The mountain of the 
Lord's house shall be established in the top 
of the mountains, and all nations shall flow 
unto it." The name of Christ shall be known 
from the rising of the sun unto the going 
down thereof. The knowledge of God shall 
cover the earth. "For the earth shall be 
full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the 
waters cover the sea." The time will come 
when it shall be said, "The kingdoms of this 
world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, 
and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever 
and ever." What, then, must be the conclu- 
sion from this seeming contrariety of de- 
scription ? 

In all probability, some of the passages 



170 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



relating to the glory of the latter days, in 
their ultimate meaning, look to the condition 
of things in the regenerated earth, beyond 
the conflagration. And yet, as we have said, 
we can not explain the Scriptures without 
anticipating a day of better things for the 
Church than has been realized. The impris- 
onment of Satan denotes curtailment of his 
power, and increased restraint upon his ac- 
tions, possibly to the extent of hindering his 
access to men in this world. This will be great 
gain in advantage for the truth. It will give 
the Gospel access to the heart, impeded only 
by the opposition of the depravity within. 
Under such conditions, the relative power of 
the Gospel will increase; the accumulated 
evidences of its divinity will shine out with a 
luster unseen before; and the quickened ac- 
tivities of Christian people will add to its 
efficiency, as its conquests are extended, and 
its victories multiplied. But will every liv- 
ing soul be converted? We dare not assume 
this. The universal spread of the Gospel 
neither implies the removal of depravity from 
human nature nor the submission of every 
sinner to the sway of divine grace. Men 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



171 



will still be descended from Adam, born after 
the flesh, and need to be "born again." But 
Christian intelligence will banish superstition. 
Idolatry will cease. Apostate Churches will 
be reformed or destroyed. False religions 
will be overthrown. Enlightened govern- 
ments, permeated with Christian principles, 
will displace tyrannies, and religious liberty 
will become the heritage of all the nations. 
This much may be expected, and such a mil- 
lennium will be indescribably glorious. But 
the old fight with inward corruption will 
go on. Carnality, and selfishness, and pri'de, 
and love of the world, and love of power, 
will struggle for the mastery, calling for 
watchfulness and self-denial, and keeping up 
all the conditions of a real probation. And 
some will be overborne. Infidelity will find 
votaries. Men of evil passion will love dark- 
ness rather than light. Such will shut their 
eyes to the brightest beams of the bright- 
est day of Gospel light, and when Satan is 
loose, they will be ready to join in the battle 
against the truth. Thus, in the final day of 
the Lord's coming, will worldliness and sin 
be found in the earth. So we read the 



172 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



prophecies. But we "see through a glass 
darkly." The best lights that reach our 
vision disclose only the mountain peaks of 
the land ahead. The valleys and plains of 
the landscape lie beneath the mists. We 
must wait till prophecy materializes into his- 
tory, and then the morning star shall give 
place to the risen sun. 



THE RESURRECTION. 



173 



Chapter XI. 

THE COMING AT THE RESURRECTION. 



E come now to consider the fact that 



* V the Second Coming of Christ is con- 
nected with the resurrection of the dead. 

This is implied in some of the parables, 
and other Scriptures, which we have already 
noticed, wherein the "harvest" is described, 
and the sending forth of the angels to gather 
the elect, and for the purpose of gathering 
out of the kingdom them that offend, is men- 
tioned. But our business in this chapter is 
with those passages which connect these two 
events together, by positive statement, and 
in terms that can not be misunderstood, or 
otherwise construed. 

And for the minute and definite state- 
ments which we now seek, we properly turn 
to the Epistles, where the different phases 
of the whole subject are clearly brought out, 




174 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



though sometimes in. terse expressions, and 
in incidental allusions. In some places the 
leading topic is the resurrection, and in oth- 
ers the advent; but always and every- where 
the inspired writers carry the thought that 
the coming of Christ is at the end of the 
Gospel period, and for the purpose of raising 
the dead and bestowing the final reward. 

A brief analysis of Paul's argument on 
the resurrection of the dead will be in place 
here, as we find it in the fifteenth chapter 
of First Corinthians. He first affirmed the 
fact that Christ arose, and adduced testi- 
mony to prove that fact; he then connected 
with that fact the resurrection of the dead 
generally, without limitation or restriction, so 
that these two facts must stand or fall to- 
gether. "If there be no resurrection of the 
dead, then is Christ not risen." After this 
he speaks of the source and extent of death 
and of the resurrection. "But now is Christ 
risen from the dead, and become the first- 
fruits of them that slept. For since by man 
came death, by man came also the resurrec- 
tion of the dead. For as in Adam all die, 
even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 



THE RESURRECTION. 



175 



But every man in his own order: Christ the 
first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ's 
at his coming. Then cometh the end, when 
he shall have delivered up the kingdom to 
God, even the Father; when he shall have 
put down all rule, and all authority and 
power. For he must reign till he hath put 
all enemies under his feet. The last enemy 
that shall be destroyed is death." 

It is important to notice that the resur- 
rection of the dead, which is so closely linked 
to the resurrection of Christ, is not confined 
to a class of the dead, to the exclusion of 
the others. It includes all that die in Adam. 
It is a general or universal resurrection. 
This fact is of particular significance in its 
bearing on the question of a premillennial 
advent. But, having asserted the fact of 
a general resurrection in such universal terms, 
as if on purpose to guard against the abuse 
of this fact which distinguishes modern "lib- 
eralistic" interpretations, he introduces, with 
a disjunctive, the necessary limitations of the 
results that follow, by recognizing the "order" 
of the resurrection. "But every man in his 
own order." The word "order" means 



176 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



band or company. It indicates class. There 
are two orders in the resurrection, as there 
are two classes to arise. These orders are 
the first and the last; the good and the bad; 
"the just and unjust." The one is a resur- 
rection unto life, and the other is a "resur- 
rection of damnation." Every man's "own 
order" is that company or band or class to 
which he belongs by moral fitness or spirit- 
ual affiliation. The first order consists of 
those who are "Christ's at his coming." 
These share the resurrection of life. To this 
class or order the remaining part of the 
apostle's discourse, in this chapter, is con- 
fined. The other class he purposely leaves 
in the dark. They come forth at the call 
of Christ, but the result of their resurrection 
is not here declared. But it is not a resur- 
rection to glory and honor. 

The next point to be observed is the fact 
that the resurrection of the dead takes place 
at the time of the coming of Christ. "They 
that are Christ's at his coming." Why 
should the "coming" of Christ be introduced 
into this argument at all, if not because of 
its relation to the resurrection of the dead? 



THE RESURRECTION. 



177 



There can be no explanation of this lan- 
guage, and no reason assigned for its occur- 
rence in this place, except on the ground 
that he comes to raise the dead. The res- 
urrection is not a translation or mere transi- 
tion at the hour of death. It is a rising 
again of the dead — a palpable and stupend- 
ous fact; a miracle of wisdom and power, 
the glory and consummation of the medi- 
atorial work of our risen Lord. It is a work 
worthy the coming and kingdom of Christ, 
the fulfillment of his grandest purpose, the 
outcome of his incarnation and sacrifice. 
4 'Then cometh the end." The work of 
Christ's kingdom is done. The mission of 
the Gospel to humanity is accomplished. 
The "harvest" is past. The "end" men- 
tioned is the end of the mediatorial reign; 
the end of the Gospel dispensation; the 
end of human probation; the end of time. 
Hence this passage antagonizes premillennial- 
ism. The coming of Christ is not to "set 
up" his kingdom on the earth, for the pur- 
pose of putting down anti-Christian rule and 
authority and power; but it is at the end of 

the reign which will have accomplished that 
12 



178 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 

work. It is "when he shall have delivered 
up the kingdom to God, even the Father; 
when he shall have put down all rule, and 
all authority and power.' ' It is, therefore, 
after the work is done, which premillennial- 
ism supposes he is coming to do. And this 
is confirmed by what is said of the destruc- 
tion of death. This is the last enemy to be 
destroyed. Its destruction is the final vic- 
tory. Beyond it there is no conflict. There 
remains no rule or authority or power to be 
put down. And death is destroyed by the 
resurrection, at the coming of Christ. But 
if death is then destroyed, all the dead are 
raised: for it is false to fact, and absurd in 
itself, to affirm that death is destroyed, when 
the righteous live again, if all the unright- 
eous still abide in death. The destruction 
of death is the abolition of its power over 
the human race. Death and hades deliver 
up their dead at the appearance of the Son 
of man and the great white throne. 

The next passage we cite is Phil, iii, 20, 
21: "For our conversation is in heaven; 
from whence also we look for the Savior, 
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our 



THE RESURRECTION. 



179 



vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto 
his glorious body, according to the working 
whereby he is able even to subdue all things 
unto himself." That this connects the res- 
urrection with the coming of Christ there 
can be no doubt. The resurrection of the 
righteous dead is always uppermost in the 
mind of the apostle, and here he speaks of 
the change awaiting the glorified, without 
reference to a different class. That which 
he calls "our vile body" can not be other 
than the mortal body in which we live, the 
body of our humiliation, which is tending to 
corruption. The Lord Jesus Christ himself 
shall come from heaven and change this vile 
body by his own power, and clothe it with 
immortality and incorruption, and thus fash- 
ion it "like unto his own glorious body." 
Hence John says, "When he shall appear 
we shall be like him, for we shall see him 
as he is." This is why the coming of Christ 
from heaven is the "blessed hope" of the 
Christian. It is the time of "the manifesta- 
tion of the sons of God." "When Christ 
who is our life shall appear, then shall ye 
also appear with him in glory." 



180 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



The only effort " liberalists " have made to 
explain this passage, without connecting the 
coming of the Savior and the resurrection, 
is to assume that it relates to a change in 
the condition of the Church in consequence 
of the destruction of Judaism. The coming 
of Christ from heaven is claimed to be that 
" figurative" coming we have so frequently 
had occasion to mention; and "this vile 
body" is represented as the old Jewish 
Church, and "his glorious body" is called 
the Christian Church. The "change" is said 
to be the change in the Church, wrought 
when Christ came "figuratively" at the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, and destroyed the old 
polity and instituted the new polity, or that 
which distinguishes the Gospel kingdom. 
Of course this is unworthy of the name of 
criticism or exposition, and unworthy of 
formal reply; and yet men of culture, who 
pride themselves in their advance of thought 
beyond the limitations of the creeds, have 
put it forth in sober earnestness. It seems 
no obstruction to such expositors, that the 
old Jewish Church was never changed into 
the glorious Christian Church, and that Paul, 



THE RESURRECTION. 



181 



and those addressed, were living in the 
Christian Church, and not in the Jewish 
Church, and had been for some time, while 
they were looking for the Savior, and antici- 
pating the day when "this vile body" should 
be changed. But enough. 

We now turn to I Thess. iv, 13-18: "But 
I would not have you to be ignorant, breth- 
ren, concerning them which are asleep, that 
ye sorrow not, even as others which have no 
hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also which sleep in 
Jesus will God bring with him. For this we 
say unto you by the word of the Lord, that 
we which are alive and remain unto the 
coming of the Lord shall not prevent them 
which are asleep. For the Lord himself 
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with 
the voice of the archangel, and with the 
trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall 
rise first; then we which are alive . and re- 
main shall be caught up together with them 
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: 
and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 
Wherefore comfort one another with these 
words." 



l82 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



This describes the personal coming of our 
Lord to raise the dead, or it is utterly mis- 
leading. By "them which are asleep," the 
apostle undoubtedly means the dead — those 
that have fallen asleep in Christ. These are 
distinguished as a class, from those that 
"are alive and remain unto the coming of 
the Lord." And this coming is neither spir- 
itual nor figurative, but personal and literal. 
It is the coming of the Lord "himself." It 
is his public revelation in the "clouds of 
heaven," when every eye shall see him; for 
with this coming are the "shout," and the 
"voice of the archangel," and "the trump 
of God," so connected as to show the char- 
acter of the event. This is that "great 
sound of a trumpet" which is mentioned in 
Matt, xxiv, 31, and also in 1 Cor. xv, 52. 
It always relates to the resurrection of the 
dead. 

Another important fact is here brought 
out. Not only do the dead arise at the 
coming of Christ, but the living shall then 
be "changed." The dead and the living are 
the two classes mentioned. The dead in 
Christ are specifically in mind, while the 



THE RESURRECTION. 



I8 3 



unbelieving dead are unrecognized in this 
passage. Perhaps some thought the living 
would have an advantage over the dead in 
the day of the advent, so that it would be 
better for them not to die. But the apostle 
controverts this idea. In that day all the 
saints shall have equal advantage. The liv- 
ing shall not ascend to meet the Lord in ad- 
vance of the dead in Christ. These shall 
"rise first;" that is, before the living ascend. 
Then, when the dead are raised, and the liv- 
ing changed, all the saved " shall be caught 
up together." This " change" in the living, 
which is at once equivalent to death and the 
resurrection, in its effect upon the mortal 
body, is more particularly set forth in 1 Cor. 
xv, 51, 52: "Behold, I shew you a mystery: 
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be 
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of 
an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet 
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised 
incorruptible, and we shall be changed." As 
a living man, writing to living men, of the 
living and the dead, he naturally identified 
himself, and those to whom he wrote, with 
the living, without implying that he or they 



1 84 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



would still be living when the great event 
described should actually occur. But, whether 
he or they should be living or dead, the 
great thought was that "all" should be 
"changed" in a moment, in the twinkling 
of an eye, at the last trump. They were 
to be changed from corruption to incorrup- 
tion, from mortality to immortality. And 
being thus changed, the distinction between 
these classes is obliterated. They all pass 
into the immortal state together, and so shall 
they ever be with the Lord. Thus the com- 
ing of Christ terminates the reign of death 
on earth. 

To multiply proofs or extend arguments 
on this point would be superfluous. There 
are incidental questions connected with the < 
Scriptures cited, which might be considered 
here, but which must necessarily come up 
in other connections, so that we pass them 
now to avoid repetition. These relate to the 
other events which are to follow the com- 
ing of the Lord, such as the gathering of 
the nations, the resurrection of the wicked, 
the judgment, the retribution, and the con- 
flagration. Each in its place will receive due 



THE RESURRECTION. 



attention, and in the outcome it will be found 
that nothing essential to the main argument 
is overlooked. The single point in hand, 
that Christ's literal coming in person is to 
raise the dead, being sufficiently made out, 
we close the chapter, expecting to show that 
the final judgment is just as plainly con- 
nected with this same personal advent. 



1 86 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter XII. 

THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 
LTHOUGH not necessary to the com- 



pleteness of the argument in hand, it 
will, perhaps, aid in its appreciation, to fix 
our thoughts upon tire character and extent 
of the resurrection which is expected to take 
place at the coming of Christ. As we have 
seen, the Scriptures bear explicit testimony 
to the fact that the immediate object of the 
parousia is to raise the dead. Will there, 
then, be a real rising again? And if so, to 
what extent, and what shall be the result of it? 
We do not propose an exhaustive discussion 
of these points, nor to consider the various 
theories of the resurrection propounded in 
theology, only so far as they touch the ques- 
tion of the advent. It is assumed in this 
treatise that there will be a general resurrec- 
tion, of the just and the unjust, each class 




THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 187 



in order, at the coming of Christ, prepara- 
tory to the judgment. This, of course, an- 
tagonizes the notion that the righteous dead 
will be raised up an indefinite period — or the 
definite period of a thousand years — before 
the end of time, to live again upon the earth 
in its present condition, before its purification 
and renovation. But this point, having been 
more fully considered in another place, will 
not be enlarged upon here. 

The theory which more especially calls 
for our attention is that which is sometimes 
known as the progressive theory. It is largely 
favored by w liberalists, " and indeed by all 
classes that deny the personal coming of our 
Lord to raise the dead. We state it briefly, 
in the language of a distinguished writer, in 
one of the leading periodical organs of Uni- 
versalism, as follows: "The truth is, that the 
resurrection is a progressive work. It is a 
translation from the earthly to the spiritual 
life. It is simply a release of the spirit of 
man from his corporeal surroundings. He 
continues to live. The essential element 
that constitutes man a rational and intelligent 
entity does not die when it lays off its tab- 



1 88 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



ernacle of clay, but is given greater facility 
to do its exalted ministry as an angel of 
God." 

This is a "progressive" statement, the 
first sentence being explained by the second, 
the second by the third, and so on to the 
end. The " progressive work," according to 
this theory, is not to be construed so as to 
imply that there is progression in the process 
of the resurrection, as an individual experi- 
ence, but that the matter of passing into the 
resurrection state is a progressive work, in 
opposition to the common idea of a simulta- 
neous resurrection. The translation from the 
earthly to the spiritual life does not take 
place by degrees, but is accomplished at 
once as to the individual, while it is progres- 
sive as to the race. The idea is, that the 
soul possesses all the elements of the spir- 
itual or resurrection body, and that its emer- 
gence from the corporeal structure, the earthy 
body, in the event of death, is in itself the 
resurrection. Hence the statement that "it is 
simply a release of the spirit of man from its 
corporeal surroundings." It being "simply" 
this, and nothing more, there is no radical 



THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 189 



difference between death and the resurrection 
from the dead, and no perceptible distinction 
in time between the two events, if we can 
call them two events. Death is the res- 
urrection; for death releases the spirit from 
its corporeal surroundings, removes the "in- 
telligent entity" from its "tabernacle of 
clay," and translates it from the earthly to 
the spiritual life beyond. 

This is no misconception of the doctrine 
of a progressive resurrection. We take it 
in the language of its friends, and clothe it 
in the garb they have prepared for it, and 
shall deal with it in all honesty. If it does 
not confound death and the resurrection, at 
least as to time, we fail to comprehend it. 
Death does all for the man that this theory 
ascribes to the resurrection; and the two 
events are so related, if they are not identi- 
cal, that one never takes place without the 
other. 

We object to this theory that it is liable 
to the censure that Paul passed upon some 
heretical theories of the resurrection in his 
day. He encountered some who affirmed 
that "the resurrection was past already:" 



190 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



and they doubtless argued the subject learn- 
edly, and made their theory appear plausible; 
for the apostle assures us that they had 
"overthrown the faith of some." It is clear, 
however, that the apostle did not agree with 
them. Whatever he taught concerning the 
resurrection of the dead, it is certain that he 
favored no theory that would allow it to be 
said of those gone before, that their "resur- 
rection is past. " This is the very point he 
denied and censured. But if the resurrection 
occurs at death, — if it is simply a release of 
the spirit of man from its corporeal surround- 
ings, — how are we to avoid saying of the 
dead of other generations, and even of our 
friends who have recently died, that with 
them "the resurrection is past already ?" 
There is, indeed, no possibility of avoiding 
this; and if the theory is correct, Paul might 
as well have complained of any who asserted 
that the death of the dead was past, and 
charged them with "overthrowing the faith/ ' 
as to complain of those who affirmed that 
the dead had already passed into the resur- 
rection state. 

We object to this "progressive " theory, 



THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 191 

again, that it destroys the very idea of the 
resurrection of the dead. It teaches instead 
the resurrection of that which never died. 
Of the man " translated from the earthly to 
the spiritual life," it says, "He continues to 
live." How, then, was he dead? Only as 
to his body — the "tabernacle of clay." But 
does the "tabernacle of clay" ever live again? 
Does the body that died have any share 
whatever in the rising again? Not according 
to this theory. Its teaching is, that the spirit 
is released from its earthly surroundings; that 
it lays off its corporeal incumbrance and 
never puts it on again. It passes at once 
to a higher plane of life, in total separation 
from all that is material. That which died 
never lives again, and that which "continues 
to live" never dies. Where, then, is the res- 
urrection of the dead? There is, in this the- 
ory,, absolutely no room for the idea of the 
dead living again. There is a "translation" 
of the spirit, a separation from the body, 
which might be called a promotion, but we 
see no resurrection. No intelligible concep- 
tion of a resurrection can be formed without 
the idea of something living again which had 



192 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



been dead; but this radical idea of a resur- 
rection is excluded utterly. When Christ 
arose, he said, "I am he that liveth, and was 
dead, and, behold, I am alive for evermore." 
His was a resurrection, a coming back to life. 

Time intervenes between death and the 
resurrection. Four days intervened between 
the death and resurrection of Lazarus, whom 
Christ raised from the dead. At least two 
nights and a day intervened between the 
death of Christ and his resurrection ; for 
he did not rise till the morning of the 
third day after his burial. And time does 
intervene between the death and the rising 
again of those who are " absent from the 
body, and present with the Lord;" for when 
Christ comes to raise the dead, he brings his 
saints along with him. In the present argu- 
ment, it matters not how short the time, or 
how long, so that some time separates be- 
tween the two events. If time intervenes 
at all, one day is as a thousand years, and 
a thousand years as one day. The interven- 
ing time, be it much or little, destroys the 
theory that makes the resurrection a mere 
promotion of the spirit. 



THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 193 

But the advocates of this progressive the- 
ory sometimes attempt Scriptural argument 
in its support. Take a specimen: "If the 
'God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and 
the God of Jacob,' is 'not the God of the 
dead, but of the living,' where can we find 
evidence of the doctrine that all men who 
die, sleep on, insensible, for myriads of ages, 
till the end of the physical world, and till a 
general resurrection of the dead? And if the 
resurrection of the dead will take place all 
at once, at the end of all time — things — to 
whom did the dead belong during all the 
.ages before that period? Not to God; for 
he is 'not the God of the dead, but of the 
living.'" This is a fair example of "liberal- 
istic" reasoning from the Scriptures. If it 
means any thing, it is that Abraham and 
Isaac and Jacob are not dead, but living. 
They died, but they "lived on." It means, 
further, that they were already in the resur- 
rection state — that the resurrection with them 
was "past" — when the Savior said that "God 
r is not the God of the dead, but of the liv- 
ing." And, if so, they were "ascended," for 
that is about what our "progressive" theorists 
13 



194 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



mean by the resurrection, — and if they were 
"ascended," so also should the "patriarch 
David" have been "ascended;" but Peter 
did not so understand the subject, on the day 
of Pentecost, when he spoke as the Spirit 
gave him utterance. His theme was the res- 
urrection of Christ, and, addressing himself 
to the Jews, Peter said, "Men and brethren, 
let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch 
David, that he is both dead and buried, and 
his sepulcher is with us unto this day. . . . 
For David is not ascended into the heavens." 
(Acts ii, 29-34.) And yet, notwithstanding 
the fact that "God is not the God of the 
dead, but of the living," he was the God 
of David, just as he was the God of Abra- 
ham; and David lived unto God, just as 
Abraham did ; and Abraham was dead and 
buried as truly as David was. Hence, when 
the Jews said to Jesus, "Abraham is dead, 
and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man 
keep my saying he shall never taste of death. 
Art thou greater than our father Abraham, 
which is dead? and the prophets are dead: 
whom makest thou thyself?" he never dis- 
puted the fact that Abraham and the proph- 



THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 195 



ets were dead. He admitted all that, and 
yet made his point, which was, ''Before 
Abraham was, I am." With respect to the 
earthly life — the life of the body — they were 
all dead. They "saw corruption." The res- 
urrection, with them, was not a past event. 
They were "not ascended." But with re- 
spect to the "intelligent entity," the soul, 
they continued to live. They were "absent 
from the body, but present with the Lord." 
They were released from their "corporeal 
surroundings," but, in the thought of the 
inspired writers, this release did not consti- 
tute the resurrection of the dead. It was a 
basis for argument, and confounded the Sad- 
ducees, who denied all separate existence; and 
the fact that the soul lived on, inspired the 
hope that the body should be raised again; 
but there is not a syllable in the whole book 
of God that warrants the belief that this sep- 
arate existence of the soul is the resurrection 
of the dead. The living soul did not die, and 
it does not rise again. The resurrection of 
the dead is the rising up of that which died, 
or it is nothing. Death destroys life, and 
the resurrection destroys death. 



& 

196 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



This "argument" of the liberalists antag- 
onizes the soul-sleeping doctrine of the Sec- 
ond Adventists, and of all materialists; but it 
touches no point of the issue we make with 
Universalism, and every other "ism 0 that 
denies the rising of the dead at the coming 
of Christ, at the end of time. Evangelical 
Christians hold no such materialistic crudities 
as that "all who die sleep on, insensible" — 
except as to their bodies — "for myriads of 
ages, till the end of the physical world, and 
till a general resurrection of the dead." This 
cheerless doctrine finds no place in the 
creeds or song or prayers of living Chris- 
tians, nor is it at all necessary to an intelli- 
gent belief in the future, simultaneous resur- 
rection of the dead, both of the just and the 
unjust. The Scriptures afford ample ground 
for believing in the continued existence of 
the soul in the separate state, and for expect- 
ing its ultimate reunion with the body, raised, 
changed, and glorified, "at the last day." 

The language of the Bible on the subject 
of the resurrection of the dead is utterly 
unlike the language of this "progressive" 
theory. The sacred writers never confound 



THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 197 



death and the resurrection. They never 
speak of the resurrection of that which 
" continues to live." They never make the 
"spirit," the "intelligent entity," the subject 
of the resurrection at all, much less the ex- 
clusive subject of it. They speak only of 
the resurrection of "the dead," not of the 
living. Paul says, "He that raised up Christ 
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal 
body." He also says of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, at his coming from heaven, that he 
"shall change our vile body, that it may be 
fashioned like unto his glorious body." The 
body, not the soul, is the subject of the res- 
urrection, as it is of death. The "taber- 
nacle" shall be taken down; but, as the 
tabernacle of the Jews was succeeded by the 
temple which received the ark and the she- 
kinah, so this tabernacle shall reappear, not as 
the temporary abode of the soul, but as the 
"temple of the Holy Ghost." Hence, the 
apostle tells us, not that the immortal part 
shall live on, but that "this mortal" shall 
"put on immortality;" not that the incor- 
ruptible part shall continue to live, but that 
"this corruptible must put on incorruption;" 



198 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



not that death shall triumph forever over the 
mortal part that dies, but that "when this 
corruptible shall have put on incorruption, 
and this mortal shall have put on immor- 
tality, then shall be brought to pass the say- 
ing that is written, Death is swallowed up in 
victory. O death, where is thy sting? O 
grave, where is thy victory? The sting of 
death is sin; the strength of sin is the law. 
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the 
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
And, hence, also, all who have the first-fruits 
of the Spirit, "wait for the adoption, to wit, 
the redemption of our body." The Psalmist 
anticipated this New Testament revelation, 
when he said, "My flesh also shall rest in 
hope." 

"But," says the objector, "if the body 
shall rise again, with all its particles and 
properties and proportions and relations, will 
it not be the same body, under the same 
laws of life, with the same tendency to cor- 
ruption?" This brings rather more into the 
subject than belongs to it. It is not essen- 
tial to the identity of the body that its par- 
ticles shall return with their properties and 



THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 199 



proportions and relations. Nor is this the 
Scriptural idea, but the contrary of its plain- 
est teachings. The body is not to come 
forth unchanged, but "changed," — changed 
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye; for 
the change thus predicated of the living that 
"shall not sleep" is equally affirmed of the 
dead that shall be raised up. And if the 
living shall be "changed," without losing 
their identity, so also shall the dead; and if 
the "change" wrought in the living takes 
away their mortality and corruptibility, with- 
out taking away their bodies, so also shall 
the dead, when raised up in honor and glory, 
possess their bodies, made spiritual and im- 
mortal. This is Paul's idea of the resurrec- 
tion of the body. Every change essential 
to its spiritual relationships will be wrought 
in it. "Flesh and blood can not inherit the 
kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption 
inherit incorruption." Therefore, the refining 
process of the resurrection will take away 
every element of corruption, and all that 
which disqualifies flesh and blood for an in- 
heritance in the heavenly kingdom. Be not 
disturbed, then, about any re-enthrallment of 



200 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the soul through the resurrection of the 
body. That shall not occur. The spiritual 
body that shall come forth out of corruption 
and death will prove no detriment, but the 
joy and crown of the redeemed soul, re- 
clothed and glorified. Our bodies shall be 
"changed," but not exchanged for others 
than our own. 

"But this is incomprehensible." Yes, it 
is a "mystery." Paul says, "Behold, I 
show you a mystery." The mode of its 
accomplishment surpasses our thought. So 
does the mode of creation. Our present 
being is incomprehensible. Mystery meets 
us on every side. The mystery of the res- 
urrection is an incident of the fact, and fur- 
nishes no ground of objection to the fact 
itself. It is to be treated as we treat all 
other mysteries. We are to receive the fact 
on the testimony that sustains it, without 
concern about its mode. It is a hopeful sign 
when men recognize the fact that the resur- 
rection of the dead is an event whose mode 
is not to be explained or comprehended. 

The resurrection is a miracle. It belongs 
to no other class of facts than the supernat- 



THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 201 



ural. Those who have gotten above or be- 
yond the admission of the miraculous have 
no place for this doctrine, and no business 
with it. And being a miracle, it must be 
studied in the light of miracles. If it were 
a natural event, we should study it in the 
light of natural events. We should then 
want to see something about the laws, the 
forces, or the agents or causes, that were to 
bring it to pass. We should look after the 
obstructions or difficulties to be encountered, 
and scan all the conditions necessary to the 
production of the contemplated result, and 
summon to our aid all the light that philos- 
ophy and science could bring; but this is all 
out of place while studying a miracle. The 
resurrection does not result from natural laws 
or causes, and therefore the study of these 
will shed no light upon the question of its 
possibility or probability. In order to deter- 
mine the possibility of its occurrence, we 
must study the supernatural powers and 
agencies on which miracles depend; and in- 
deciding upon its probability«we are to look 
at the moral ends proposed, and see whether 
he who only can accomplish the work has 



20 2 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



given his word that he will do it. We are 
thus brought back to divine revelation for all 
light and all hope. It is a subject of revela- 
tion purely, an effect of divine power and 
wisdom, beyond the range of natural agencies. 

So the Savior regarded it, and would have 
others regard it, when he rebuked the Sad- 
ducees for their unbelief, and their vicious 
methods of argumentation on the subject. 
They tried to carry the laws of earthly life, 
and the limitations of natural agencies, over 
into the sphere of the miraculous. In this 
they erred, as do modern objectors, who dis- 
believe the doctrine of the resurrection be- 
cause they are unable to see its processes, or 
to comprehend the forces necessary to accom- 
plish it. The Savior's reply to all such ob- 
jectors was pertinent, and will never cease 
to be appropriate, so long as men strive to 
obstruct faith in the resurrection by alleging 
difficulties arising from their imperfect per- 
ception of natural laws. "Ye do therefore 
err, not knowing the Scriptures, neither the 
power of God." The resurrection depends 
on God's power. If he is able to raise the 
dead, that is enough. It is illogical to reason 



THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 203 



on this subject, without taking God into the 
account. If he possesses power enough and 
wisdom enough and promises to do it, that 
ends controversy with Christians. We, there- 
fore, close this chapter with the remark, 
that it is absolutely impossible for any one 
to frame an objection to the resurrection of 
the dead on natural or philosophical or scien- 
tific grounds, that does not imply a limita- 
tion of the power of God, and make that 
limitation material to its statement and its 
ultimate reliance. 



2 04 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter XIII. 

RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT. 

HAVING seen that the resurrection of 
the dead is connected with the coming 
of Christ, when he shall be revealed in the 
clouds with the angels, and when he shall 
cause the trump of God to sound, we now 
proceed to show that the final judgment will 
occur at the time of the same personal advent. 

If the Scriptures reveal any thing clearly 
in regard to what shall be hereafter, it is the 
fact that the resurrection of the dead and the 
judgment of the world stand related in point 
of time. Those who discard the doctrine of 
a future general judgment, followed by eter- 
nal retributions, find themselves impelled to 
deny this proposition, in the interest of their 
system; and others, whose peculiar notions 
of the resurrection forbid the admission of a 
simultaneous rising at the coming of Christ, 



RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT. 205 



reject the idea of a judgment in the resurrec- 
tion, as antagonistic to their conceptions of 
the spirituality of the advent and the resur- 
rection: but we are unable to avoid the con- 
viction that all such have yielded to the influ- 
ence of prepossessions to such an extent as 
to warp their judgments, and prevent the 
clearest testimony from having its legitimate 
effect in their minds. 

Our first argument on this point is based 
on the Scriptural expression, "the last day " 

The following Scriptures designate the 
period of the resurrection as the "last day:" 
"And this is the Father's will which hath 
sent me, that of all which he hath given me 
I should lose nothing, but should raise it up 
again at the last day. And this is the will 
of him that sent me, that every one that 
seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may 
have everlasting life: and I will raise him up 
at the last day. . . . No man can come 
to me, except the Father, which hath sent 
me, draw him: and I will raise him up at 
the last day. Whoso eateth my flesh, and 
drinketh my blood, hath eternal life: and I 
will raise him up at the last day." (John vi, 



206 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



39, 40, 44, 54.) To the same effect is the 
conversation between the Savior and Martha, 
the sister of Lazarus, who was then dead: 
" Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise 
again. Martha saith. unto him, I know that 
he shall rise in the resurrection at the last 
day." (John xi, 23, 24.) The common be- 
lief among the Jews was that the dead should 
rise again at the last day. Martha expressed 
this sentiment, and whether she received it 
from the Jews as a part of her religious edu- 
cation, or from the previous teaching of Jesus 
Christ himself, she believed it true, and was 
not contradicted. Nor was it any figurative 
rising again of which she spoke. Lazarus 
was literally dead and buried, and she spoke 
of him, and of that resurrection which would 
terminate the reign of death over his mortal 
body. All thoughts of a moral or spiritual 
or figurative resurrection, were foreign to 
her mind on that mournful occasion. And 
Christ understood her perfectly, and spoke 
of the same kind of resurrection. He then, 
by calling Lazarus out of his grave, dis- 
played his power over death, and encouraged 
the hope of a general resurrection at the last 



RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT. 207 



day. This miracle, wrought under such cir- 
cumstances, was a demonstration of his pur- 
pose to conquer death ; and in the occur- 
rences of that day not a word was said, nor 
an act performed, that was not calculated to 
strengthen the faith of the disciples, as ex- 
pressed by Martha, that there shall be a 
resurrection ' ' at the last day. " 

Thus, in Paul's argument, as seen in an- 
other chapter, when Christ comes to raise the 
dead, it is said, "Then cometh the end. ,, 
The period designated is the end of the me- 
diatorial reign of Christ, and, therefore, the 
end of the dispensation of grace, the end of 
time. This last crowning act, which closes 
the history of the reign of Messiah as media- 
tor and intercessor, and introduces the final 
period of retribution, is well distinguished as 
"the last day." It is variously set forth in 
the Scriptures as "the day," "that day," 
"the day of the Lord," "the great and ter- 
rible day," "the day of wrath," "the day of 
judgment;" but in no way is it more im- 
pressively described than in these repeated 
references to it as "the last day." 

And this same language is elsewhere used 



208 SECOND COMING OF GHRIST. 



by our Lord to indicate the time of the judg- 
ment. God hath appointed a day in which 
he will judge the world in righteousness, 
when he will render to every man according 
to his deeds; and that appointed day of judg- 
ment is "the last day." "And if any man 
hear my words and believe not, I judge him 
not ; for I came not to judge the world, but 
to save the world. He that rejecteth me, 
and receiveth not my words, hath one that 
judgeth him : the word that I have spoken, 
the same shall judge him in the last day," 
(John xii, 47, 48.) If no other passages in 
the Bible connected the resurrection and the 
judgment, and fixed both events at the pe- 
riod of the winding up of human history on 
the earth, our Savior's use of this phrase, 
"the last day," is quite sufficient, and ought 
to command the faith of all that believe his 
words. 

The significance of the word "day," in 
this oft-repeated phrase, is sometimes called 
in question, and its ambiguity is supposed to 
afford room for doubting the correctness of 
the application here made of the language. 
It is doubted whether the word "day" 



RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT. 209 



should be taken in its ordinary sense as de- 
noting the limited period of twenty-four hours. 
Possibly this doubt is well founded. We 
neither affirm nor deny any thing as to the 
length of the day. That is not the material 
point. The fact asserted is that it is 4 'the 
last day." The day in question is at the end 
of a series of days ; and that series, as a 
whole, makes up the duration of time, as 
measured by the earth's diurnal revolutions, 
so that the ' ' last day, " whether longer or 
shorter in fact, is beyond all the ordinary 
days of time. We speak, metaphorically, of 
" our day " and ' ' our time " and of the "last 
time," as did the sacred writers; but, in the 
passages cited, where the resurrection and the 
judgment are mentioned, we trace no meta- 
phorical use that would indicate its applica- 
tion to the Gospel day. Whether of longer 
or shorter duration, the language points to a 
definite period, fixed in the mind of God, 
when the present order of things shall cease- 
when time shall be no more, and when the 
Son of man shall come in glory, and raise the 
dead, and judge the world in righteousness. 
This is all confirmed by the Apocalyptic 
14 



2io SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



vision of the closing scene in Rev. xx, II- 
15 : "And I saw a great white throne, and 
him that sat on it, from whose face the earth 
and the heaven fled away ; and there was 
found no place for them. And I saw the 
dead, small and great, stand before God ; 
and the books were opened: and another 
book was opened, which is the book of life : 
and the dead were judged out of those things 
which were written in the books, according 
to their works. And the sea gave up the dead 
which were in it ; and death and hell {hades) 
delivered up the dead which were in them : 
and they were judged 'every man according 
to their works. And death and hell were 
cast into the lake of fire. This is the second 
death. And whosoever was not found writ- 
ten in the book of life was cast into the lake 
of fire." This scene follows events which 
unquestionably mark the closing up of the 
Gospel age, such as the binding of Satan, the 
thousand years' reign of the martyrs, the loos- 
ing of Satan, the battle of Gog and Magog, 
and the final overthrow of the enemies of 
God. The beginning of this period is an 
epoch of unspeakable interest to the Church, 



RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT. 211 



when fierce opposition and bloody strife in 
the earth shall cease, and when Christian 
governments shall displace the idolatries and 
superstitions of the ages, and when Satanic 
powers shall be so restrained that the Gospel 
will find its way to the hearts of men, im- 
peded only by such barriers as their native 
depravity presents ; and yet, it is to be borne 
in mind, as previously shown, that no per- 
sonal advent of our Lord is recognized as in- 
augurating this blessed era of the Church's 
triumph. The descent of an angel, with a 
key and a chain in his hand, to bind Satan 
and cast him into the bottomless pit, is noted; 
and surely, if the descent of the Son of God 
himself had then taken place, with all his 
saints and angels, with the voice of the arch- 
angel and the trump of God, and with glory 
flashing from the east to the w r est, so that 
every eye should see him, such a transcend- 
ently glorious fact could not have been left 
out of the narration. That it is not men- 
tioned is apparent, and this silence speaks 
volumes in opposition to any theory of the 
Advent that locates it this side of the day of 
judgment. But the coming of the Lord at 



212 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the end of this period is recognized. The 
" great white throne " appears. This is "the 
throne of his glory,' ' mentioned in Matt, xxv, 
31 : " When the Son of man shall come in his 
glory, and all the holy angels with him, then 
shall he sit upon the throne of his glory ; and 
before him shall be gathered all nations." 
Hence, the appearance of the "great white 
throne/' preparatory to the judgment, and 
subsequently to the "thousand years" of 
Satan's bondage, proves unmistakably that 
the coming of Christ synchronizes with the 
destruction of death and hades and the final 
judgment. We note specifically the order of 
events, as set forth in this vision: 1. The de- 
scent of the angel with the key of the bottom- 
less pit ; 2. The binding and imprisonment 
of Satan ; 3. The reign of " the souls of them 
that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus " — 
which is the triumph of the martyrs, distin- 
guished above all other saints during this era 
of rest and peace ; 4. The loosing of Satan 
and the last conflict upon earth; 5. The sud- 
den appearance of the "great white throne," 
with the Judge of all the earth upon it; 6. 
The resurrection of the dead — "death and hell 



RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT. 213 



delivered up the dead which were in them ;" 
7. The judgment — "And they were judged 
every man according to their works;" 8. The 
execution of the sentence, "And whosoever 
was not found written in the book of life was 
cast into the lake of fire." Here ends the 
scene. 

Following this comes a scene which is not 
to be expected in this world during the reign 
of Christ as mediator ; nor can it be during 
that wonderful era called the millennium. It 
belongs to the immortal state, beyond the 
coming of Christ — beyond the resurrection 
and the judgment, and beyond the passing 
away of the earth and heaven which are now. 
And it is to this period of triumph that many 
of the prophecies belong, which millenarians 
apply to the supposed reign of Christ on the 
earth before the final judgment. "And I saw 
a new heaven and a new earth : for the first 
heaven and the first earth were passed away ; 
and there was no more sea. And I John saw 
the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down 
from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride 
adorned for her husband. And I heard a 
great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the 



214 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



tabernacle of God is with men, and he will 
dwell with them, and they shall be his people, 
and God himself shall be with them, and be 
their God. And God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no 
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, 
neither shall there be any more pain : for the 
former things are passed away." (Rev. xxi, 
1-4.) This is, indeed, a new creation. Here 
the saints will enjoy perfect bliss ; and in this 
final state shall be realized to its fullest meas- 
ure the promise that "the meek shall in- 
herit the earth." Prophetic vision sometimes 
caught glimpses of this ultimate renewal of 
the earth, and portrayed it as the product of 
redemption, the outcome of the mission of 
Christ ; and to this consummation the prophe- 
cies and the promises look, and for it the 
whole of the Gospel dispensation is a prepa- 
ration, while the highest attainments of the 
Church, in her militant state, can only fore- 
shadow her glory in this new heaven and new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Here 
there shall be nothing to hurt or to destroy 
in all God's holy mountain. Here shall be 
found the city of God. Here shall walk the 



RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT. 215 

nations of them that are saved. This shall 
be one of the mansions in our Father's house. 
But God's children shall inherit all things. 
All heaven shall be theirs. Every world that 
floats in space shall minister to their comfort, 
and prove subservient to their pleasures, as 
they range the broad fields of the boundless 
universe. We must, therefore, wait till the 
curse is purged from the earth by the purify- 
ing fires of the day of the Lord's coming be- 
fore the whole of prophetic forecast is fulfilled. 



2 t6 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter XIV. 

CHRIST'S COMING AT THE JUDGMENT. 



HE next point to be insisted upon is 



the fact indirectly set forth in the pre- 
ceding chapter, that the personal coming of 
Christ, with his angels, is at the time of the 
judgment, when every man shall be rewarded 
according to the deeds done in his body. 

We have seen already, that his coming in 
glory is personal and visible; that it is for 
the purpose of raising the dead; that it is at 
the "end of the world ;" and now, if it shall 
appear that it is also for the purpose of gath- 
ering the nations before his judgment seat, 
and officially announcing their destiny, we 
shall have reached a point where speculation 
and theorizing ought to cease, and where 
humble Christian faith should recognize the 
coming of Christ as the one grand event 
which is to terminate the history of this 




THE JUDGMENT. % 217 



world, reveal the final outcome of all human 
probation, and introduce the unchangeable 
realities of the world of retribution. 

A preliminary fact ought to be settled be- 
fore we proceed. It is, that rewards and 
punishments are to be distributed, according 
to the works of men, at the day of judg- 
ment, and at that time only. This is a fund- 
amental fact. It underlies all right concep- 
tions of probation and retribution, and stands 
out clearly in the Holy Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testaments. "For God shall bring 
every work into judgment, with every secret 
thing, whether it be good or whether it be 
evil/' "But I say unto you, that every idle 
word that men shall speak, they shall give 
account thereof in the day of judgment." 
In Rom. ii, 5-16, the fact and time of the re- 
wards are set forth, so as to show that retri- 
bution follows the day of judgment. In 
quoting, the parenthesis is omitted. "But, 
after thy hardness and impenitent heart, 
treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the 
day of wrath and revelation of the righteous 
judgment of God, who will render to every 
man according to his deeds — in the day 



2l8 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



when God shall judge the secrets of men by 
Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel." The 
day of rewards and punishments is the day 
of judgment. To the same point is the fol- 
lowing: "But why dost thou judge thy 
brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy 
brother? for we shall all stand before the 
judgment-seat of Christ. For it is written, 
As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall 
bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to 
God. So then every one of us shall give 
account of himself to God." (Rom. xiv, 
10-12.) Read this in connection with 2 Cor. 
v, 10 : "For we must all appear before the 
judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may 
receive the things done in his body, accord- 
ing to that he hath done, whether it be good 
or bad." This brings out the whole proposi- 
tion. When men appear before the judg- 
ment seat of Christ, and receive at the Lord's 
hands according to their deeds, that is the 
day of judgment, when we shall all give 
account of ourselves unto God. Then, if it 
shall turn out that this work of rewarding 
men according to their deeds takes place at 
Christ's Second Coming, with the angels, 



THE JUDGMENT. 219 

when he descends to raise the dead, the 
point before us will be fully sustained; 
namely, that his coming is to judge the 
world, as well as to raise the dead. 

In support of this proposition Ave refer to 
Matt, xvi, 27: "For the Son of man shall 
come in the glory of his Father with his 
angels ; and then he shall reward every man 
according to his works." This coming with 
the angels is not a figurative coming, as has 
been shown; nor is it the spiritual coming 
in the kingdom, of which mention is made 
in the succeeding verse. It is a full, distinct, 
comprehensive statement of his personal com- 
ing in the glory of the Father, with the 
angels, and so complete that it requires no 
elucidation to show its bearing on the point 
in hand. It settles the fact beyond all con- 
troversy, that his personal coming is the 
time of retribution — the time of the judg- 
ment. There is but one period for appearing 
before the judgment seat of Christ, and but 
one object. It is to receive according to the 
deeds done in the body, which occurs once 
for all, and when it occurs, that is the day 
of judgment. The date is unrevealed, but 



220 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the fact is most unequivocally stated, that it 
will be at the Second Coming of Christ. 
"Then he shall reward every man according 
to his works.' ' 

We also cite Mark viii, 38: "Whosoever, 
therefore, shall be ashamed of me and of my 
words in this adulterous and sinful genera- 
tion, of him also shall the Son of man be 
ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his 
Father, with the holy angels. " The parallel 
passage is Luke ix, 26: "For whosoever 
shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of 
him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when 
he shall come in his own glory, and in his 
Father's, and of the holy angels." The 
connection of these passages is the same as 
that in Matthew, where it is affirmed that 
"then he shall reward every man according 
to his works." The allusion is unquestion- 
ably to his personal coming, and to the judg- 
ment. To be "ashamed" of men, in his 
coming, is more than to feel an inward emo- 
tion with reference to them. It means a 
positive, open, judicial rejection of them. 
Thus we read in Matt, x, 32, 33: "Whoso- 
ever therefore shall confess me before men, 



THE JUDGMENT. 



221 



him will I confess also before my Father 
which is in heaven. But whosoever shall 
deny me before men, him will I also deny 
before my Father which is in heaven." And 
also in Luke xii, 8, 9: "Also I say unto you, 
Whosoever shall confess me before men, him 
shall the Son of man also confess before the 
angels of God. But he that denieth me be- 
fore men shall be denied before the angels of 
God." This act of confessing men before 
the Father and before the angels of God is 
an act that belongs to the period of his com- 
ing in glory; and the act of denying those 
that denied him before men belongs to the 
same period, and is the same as that ex- 
pressed above, when he says he will be 
"ashamed" of them "when he shall come 
in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of 
the holy angels." It must be, therefore, 
that the day of his coming in glory with the 
angels is the day of judgment, when he 
"shall reward every man according to his 
works." 

Passing over, in this place, the parables 
of the tares and wheat, and the net with 
the fishes, which confirm the view here 



222 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



taken; and, also, the testimonies of the 
twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of 
Matthew, which bear upon the subject — all 
of which are considered elsewhere — we turn 
to i Cor. iv, 3-5: " But with me it is a very 
small thing that I should be judged of you, 
or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine 
own self. For I know nothing by myself; 
yet am I not hereby justified; but he that 
judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore, judge 
nothing before the time, until the Lord come, 
who both will bring to light the hidden 
things of darkness, and will make manifest 
the counsels of the hearts; and then shall 
every man have praise of God." The evi- 
dence this passage brings is somewhat indi- 
rect, yet not in the least ambiguous. The 
apostle reproves men forjudging one another, 
and possibly alludes to criticisms which had 
been made upon his own conduct. He ap- 
peals from the judgments of men to the 
judgment of God, and incidentally mentions 
the coming of the Lord as the time of the 
final judgment, when all that is hidden shall 
be revealed, and every man shall have his 
just award. He himself could afford to wait 



THE JUDGMENT. 



223 



for the vindication which that day would 
surely bring, and he would have all Christian 
people do the same. Hence his appeal, 
" Therefore, judge nothing before the time, 
until the Lord come." There can be no doubt 
that this language w r as written by the Apos- 
tle Paul under the full persuasion that the 
coming of the Lord was to be the day of 
judgment. It is impossible to understand 
his appeal on any other hypothesis. But not 
only does this appeal prove the point by 
clearly recognizing the coming of the Lord as 
"the time" of judgment, but the work at- 
tributed to the Lord, at his coming, is the 
appropriate and distinguishing work of the 
judgment-day. "Until the Lord come, who 
both will bring to light the hidden things of 
darkness, and will make manifest the counsels 
of the hearts." This is pre-eminently the 
work of the Lord in the day of judgment. 
It is then that he w r ill "bring every w r ork 
into judgment, with every secret thing, 
whether it be good or whether it be evil." 
It is then that "God shall judge the secrets 
of men by Jesus Christ." It is then that 
"we must all appear before the judgment- 



224 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



seat of Christ, that every one may receive the 
things done in the body, according to that he 
hath done, whether it be good or bad." It 
is then that "the books will be opened/' and 
every one be "judged out of those things 
which are written in the books." It is then 
that "every one of us shall give account of 
himself to God." That is a day of revela- 
tion — a day of disclosure — a day of bringing 
to light the hidden things of darkness. No 
secrets shall evade the scrutiny of the judg^ ; 
no counsels lurking in the hearts of men shall 
pass the day of the Lord's coming without 
being made manifest. How, then, is it pos- 
sible to avoid the conclusion that when the 
Lord comes it is to judge the world in right- 
eousness ? 

Our next appeal is to Paul's epistles to 
the Thessalonians. It is freely admitted that 
the proceedings of the day of judgment did 
not form the theme of these epistles, and, 
therefore, whatever light they shed upon the 
subject in hand, comes incidentally. It is, 
how T ever, none the less clear when it comes, 
and none the less satisfactory because it 
comes as it does. We commence by read- 



THE JUDGMENT. 



225 



ing from 2 Thess. i, 3-10: " We are bound 
to thank God always for you, brethren, as it 
is meet, because that your faith groweth ex- 
ceedingly, and the charity of every one of 
iyou all toward each other aboundeth ; so that 
we ourselves glory in you in the Churches of 
God, for your patience and faith in all your 
persecutions and tribulations that ye endure : 
which is a manifest token of the righteous 
judgment of God, that ye may be counted 
worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye 
also suffer: seeing it is a righteous thing with 
God to recompense tribulation to them that 
trouble you ; and to you who are troubled 
rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be 
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, 
in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that 
know not God, and that obey not the Gospel 
of our Lord Jesus Christ : w r ho shall be pun- 
ished with everlasting destruction from the 
presence of the Lord, and from the glory of 
his power ; when he shall come to be glori- 
fied in his saints, and to be admired in all 
them that believe (because our testimony 
among you was believed) in that day." 

In this passage two things are apparent, 
15 



226 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



which, together, make out that the coming 
of Christ is the day of judgment. First, the 
unbelieving and disobedient shall then be pun- 
ished ; and, secondly, the punishment is that 
final award which follows the judgment. 
The first point is plainly affirmed, so- as to 
admit of no denial. The last point, though 
not stated in so many words, is quite evident 
from the nature of the language employed, 
"Who shall be punished with everlasting 
destruction from the presence of the Lord, 
and from the glory of his power, when he 
shall come to be glorified in his saints." 
There is no doubt that the punishment is 
connected with the coming of Christ, and, 
from the terms in which it is described, it 
must be final. It is no temporary infliction, 
no preparatory or premonitory judgment, to 
be renewed or repeated or reversed at a sub- 
sequent day. It is expressed in the strong- 
est language that ever occurs with reference 
to the ultimate doom of the ungodly, and 
corresponds in this respect with the terms of 
the final sentence pronounced by the Son of 
man w r hen he gathers the nations and sepa- 
rates them as a shepherd divideth the sheep 



THE JUDGMENT. 



227 



from the goats, and consigns the condemned 
to " everlasting fire prepared for the devil and 
his angels. " 

In the preceding epistle this same coming 
of the Lord is connected with the resurrection 
of the dead, as we have seen in another chap- 
ter. We turn to it here to show that in that 
epistle, and in the immediate connection 
where the resurrection is described, the retri- 
bution of the ungodly is recognized as occurr- 
ing at the same time, and in language that 
properly denotes the day of judgment, and is 
positively and uniformly applied to that day. 
Let us read the paragraph as written, without 
regard to the division of the chapter: "For 
the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, 
and with the trump of God; and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive 
and remain shall be caught up together with 
them, in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air ; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 
Wherefore, comfort one another with these 
words. But of the times and the seasons, 
brethren, ye have no need that I write unto 
you. For yourselves know perfectly that the 



228 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the 
night. For when they shall say, Peace and 
safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon 
them, as travail upon a woman with child, 
and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, 
are not in darkness that that day should over- 
take you as a thief." (i Thess. iv, 16, to v, 
4.) Here the descent of the Lord from 
heaven, to raise the dead, is called ' ' the day 
of the Lord," and it is affirmed that "the 
day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the 
night." And the Thessalonians knew this so 
perfectly that it was not needful that the 
apostle should tell them any thing concerning 
the time of the advent. They knew, as well 
as he, that the time was not revealed, but 
purposely left in all uncertainty, the times 
and the seasons being left in the Father's own 
power. They must have learned this from 
some one who had told them the words of 
the Lord himself, which he so frequently used 
in the presence of the disciples. "Watch, 
therefore, for ye know not what hour your 
Lord doth come." "For ye know neither 
the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man 
cometh." " But of that day and hour know- 



THE JUDGMENT. 229 



eth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, 
but my Father only." This, then, is "the 
day of the Lord that so cometh as a thief in 
the night," the day that "overtakes" the 
unwatchful as a thief. It brings not only 
surprise, but "destruction." It is "the day 
of judgment and perdition of ungodly men," 
and they that are unready " shall not escape." 
It is the same day of which Peter says, "But 
the day of the Lord will come as a thief in 
the night ; in the which the heavens shall 
pass away with a great noise, and the ele- 
ments shall melt with fervent heat, the earth 
also, and the works that are therein shall be 
burned up." It will be observed that in this 
Peter used the same words that Paul did in 
regard to "the day of the Lord." They both 
had in mind the same day, and Paul alludes 
to the "destruction" it will bring upon the 
ungodly, and Peter expressly calls it "the 
day of judgment and perdition of ungodly 
men." Where, then, is there room for doubt 
that the unrevealed day of the Lord's second 
coming is the day of judgment ? It is cer- 
tainly the day of the resurrection of the dead, 
and no less clearly is it now shown to be the 



230 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



day of final retribution. Thus inseparably 
are the great events of " the last day " linked 
together. The coming of Christ and the re- 
surrection are joined together ; the coming of 
Christ and the judgment are joined together, 
and, as another chapter shows, the resurrec- 
tion and the judgment are joined together. 
Then, u what God hath joined together let 
not man put asunder." 

This showing is met by the assumption 
that the coming of Christ, treated of in these 
epistles, was not a personal, but a "figura- 
tive," advent — that same "figurative" advent 
supposed to relate to the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, which we have so fully considered and 
refuted. But we must look at it again in 
this connection, or be thought neglectful of 
something which our " liberalistic " friends 
regard as highly important. 

First of all, our attention is called to the 
fact that the Jews were somewhat numerous 
in Thessalonica, and that they had a syna- 
gogue there, and were full of zeal for the 
maintenance of their own worship. (Acts 
xvii, I— 1 3.) This is to assure us that the 
Jew r s, who were the persecutors of the disci- 



THE JUDGMENT. 231 

pies at Thessalonica, would be interested in 
the judgments that might befall their brethren 
in Jerusalem. But, suppose this to be so, 
since the Lord made no promise to come 
again at that time, but warned his disciples 
not to be deceived by the appearance of false 
Christs, on what ground the Thessalonian 
Christians could be expected to interpret the 
language Paul addressed to them concerning 
the coming of Christ, the resurrection of the 
dead, and the retribution of the wicked in the 
day of the Lord, as relating to a figurative 
coming at the destruction of Jerusalem, is 
something which ordinary minds can neither 
see nor comprehend. The truth is, that figu- 
rative coming, which has figured so largely 
in modern expositions, is simply a figment 
of the fancy, without foundation in the Scrip- 
tures, and without use or meaning in exegesis. 

It is probably true that some gathered the 
impression from Paul's first epistle, in which 
he spoke of "the day of the Lord " coming 
u as a thief in the night," that they ought to 
expect the coming of Christ very soon — to 
regard it as "imminent" — and needed further 
admonition on that point. If such was the 



232 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 

case, it is evident that they did not confound 
"the day of the Lord" with the national dis- 
aster that awaited the Jews. There is abso- 
lutely nothing to warrant any supposition to 
that effect. But whatever their thought in 
regard to the nature of the advent — and it is 
pretty certain that they began to cherish the 
idea of a speedy personal coming to raise the 
dead and punish the wicked — the apostle did 
not rebuke their error on that point, but only 
in regard to the "imminence" of the event. 
There was, doubtless, reason for his solicitude 
in relation to this matter, as the earnestness 
of his expostulation shows too much feeling 
to have arisen without the perception of dan- 
ger to his brethren. His language is, "Now 
we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering 
together unto him, that ye be not soon 
shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by 
spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, 
as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no 
man deceive you by any means, for that day 
shall not come, except there come a falling 
away first, and that man of sin be revealed, 
the son of perdition, who opposeth and ex- 



THE JUDGMENT. 



233 



alteth himself above all that is called God, or 
that is worshiped ; so that he as God sitteth 
in the temple of God, showing himself that 
he is God." We are not concerned, just 
now, about the identification of the "man of 
sin," but remark, in passing, that there are 
some characteristics here which fit the Papal 
power better than any personage or thing that 
has ever appeared on the earth. The titles 
which are given to the chief Pontiff in Rome, 
as "our Lord God, the Pope;" the preroga- 
tives and powers he claims, as the vicar of 
Christ; the homage he receives, in the bended 
knees and prostrate forms of the multitudes 
that do him reverence ; and the place he oc- 
cupies on solemn occasions in the " temple 
of God," so called, all point to him as the 
only one on earth who "exalteth himself 
above all that is called God or is worshiped," 
and who claims to exercise divine authority 
in the Church. 

But the fact most important, in this con- 
nection, is the apostasy or "falling away" 
predicted. It was, evidently, a great depart- 
ure from the simplicity of the Gospel, whose 
origin could be traced to elements already at 



234 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



work in the Church, and whose results were 
to reach onward through the centuries to the 
revelation of Christ. It was also to be closely- 
related to the coming of the lawless one, the 
man of sin, whose coming was " after the 
working of Satan with all power and signs 
and lying wonders." This apostasy, if we 
can at all depend on the facts revealed in the 
unimpeachable history of the Church, began 
in the days of the post-apostolic fathers, and 
reached its full development in the fifth cen- 
tury, when worldliness and fanaticism com- 
bined almost destroyed the spirituality of 
the Church, and the pope aspired to univer- 
sal sovereignty. If this is correct — and who 
can successfully controvert it? — then it is im- 
possible to believe that the coming of Christ, 
about which we read in these epistles, was a 
figurative coming to destroy Jerusalem. And 
whether our interpretation of the " apostasy" 
be correct or not, it is evident that the "fall- 
ing away " did not take place in time to 
allow the revelation of the "man of sin" to 
antedate the downfall of Jerusalem. That 
event took place A. D. 70, about forty years 
after the ascension of Christ, and not to ex- 



THE JUDGMENT. 



235 



ceed sixteen years after the date of this epis- 
tle. It can not be that the apostle wrote this 
earnest entreaty to the Thessalonians not to 
be shaken in mind, as though the day of 
Christ was near at hand, if it was within six- 
teen years of its consummation, and the date 
being unknown, it might happen even sooner 
than that ! And then there was something in 
the apostle's mind, connected with the com- 
ing of Christ, which he called u our gathering 
together unto him." But there was no 
" gathering together unto him" when Jerusa- 
lem was destroyed, and there was to be none; 
for the disciples were instructed not to gather 
together at that time, but to "flee to the 
mountains." 

Thus it appears, in every aspect of the 
case, that this fancied "figurative" advent 
fails its supporters, and leaves their theories 
of retribution, which depend upon it, without 
the semblance of a foundation. 



236 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter XV. 

JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 

WITH the proposition so fully established 
that the Second Coming of Christ is a 
coming to judgment, when he will render to 
every one according to his works, we now 
direct attention to the fact that this general 
judgment relates not only to those who may 
be living when the Judge descends, but to 
the dead as well. 

This is a link in the chain of argument 
not to be omitted, because it bears upon the 
"liberalistic" theories of judgment and future 
retribution, and also upon the doctrine of the 
Second Advent, and the resurrection of the 
dead. 

When Christ comes he will find two classes 
interested in his proceedings; namely, those 
who are "alive and remain unto the coming 
of the Lord/' and those who will have died. 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 



237 



These two classes are mentioned as the "quick 
and dead." Those who have not died, but 
are found living, and, consequently, when 
clothed with immortality, are "changed" with- 
out the double processes of death and resur- 
rection, are called the "quick." The original 
term means "living." The other class are 
called "the dead," although they cease to be 
"dead" by coming to life again, in the resur- 
rection. These two classes comprise the en- 
tire race of mankind, and they are the sub- 
jects of the judgment at the appearing of 
Jesus Christ. Hence we read, Acts x, 42: 
"And he commanded us to preach unto the 
people, and to testify that it is he which was 
ordained of God to be the Judge of quick 
and dead." And in 2 Tim. iv, 1 : "I charge 
thee therefore before God, and the Lord 
Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and 
the dead at his appearing and his kingdom." 
And, also, 1 Peter iv, 4, 5: "Wherein they 
think it strange that ye run not with them 
to the same excess of riot, speaking of 
you, who shall give account to him that is 
ready to judge the quick and the dead.'* 
These Scriptures cover the whole ground. 



238 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



They show that the Lord Jesus Christ is to 
exercise the office of judge; that all classes, 
the living and the dead, are to be judged; 
that they are to "give account to him;" and 
that this judgment is to occur "at his appear- 
ing and his kingdom/' This fixes the judg- 
ment, beyond question, at the second com- 
ing. As Judge he will come in glory, and 
sit upon his throne as King, and render unto 
all according to their deeds. His kingdom is 
then complete, and its final revelation is made 
in this judicial display of his righteousness. 
It seems impossible that language should be 
more explicit in connecting the judgment of 
the living and the dead with his personal and 
glorious coming. The fact that this presen- 
tation of the subject antagonizes the liberal- 
ises theory of progressive judgment and the 
premillennial hypothesis of the Second Ad- 
vent is not to be considered a moment as 
a reason for hesitancy in accepting the im- 
perative requirement of these inspired tes- 
timonies. 

We now turn to other Scriptures, which 
show with equal distinctness, that both the 
living and the dead are the subjects of the 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 



239 



judgment. Read again Rom. xiv, 8-12: "For 
whether we live, Ave live unto the Lord; and 
whether we die, we die unto the Lord ; 
whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the 
Lord's. For to this end Christ both died and 
rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both 
of the dead and living. But why dost thou 
judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at 
nought thy brother? for we shall all stand 
before the judgment seat of Christ. For it 
is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every 
knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall 
confess to God. So then every one of us shall 
give account of himself to God." Here are 
two classes, "the living and the dead'" as in 
the former Scriptures. Christ has become by 
his death and resurrection Lord or King or 
Judge of both the "dead and living." This 
takes in all the race, the righteous and the 
unrighteous. And the assertion is, that "we 
shall all stand before the judgment seat of 
Christ." The necessary antecedent of the 
"all" in this passage is the phrase, "dead 
and living," just above. With this construc- 
tion, the sense is, "We shall all, both dead 
and living, stand before the judgment seat of 



240 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 

Christ." The word "all" being a universal 
term, unless restricted by its connection, 
would include every possible class and condi- 
tion; but here it is not restricted, and its 
application to the two classes which make up 
the whole is marked and emphasized. We 
are therefore bound to take it in its broad- 
est sense. 

And this view is strengthened by the 
quotation which the apostle introduces with 
the words, "For it is written." The passage 
from which he quotes is written in Isa. xlv, 
23, 24: "I have sworn by myself, the word 
is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, 
and shall not return, that unto me every 
knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. 
Surely shall one say, in the Lord have I right- 
eousness and strength; even to him shall men 
come, and all that are incensed against him 
shall be ashamed." This teaches a universal 
subjugation to Christ, as the outcome of his 
administration as Redeemer and King. Uni- 
versalists quote the passage to prove a univer- 
sal salvation; but the apostle quotes it to 
prove a universal accountability and judg- 
ment. While "all" are gathered before his 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 



241 



judgment seat, and every knee bows to him 
in his kingly authority, and every tongue 
owns him Lord and Conqueror, his enemies, 
those that were " incensed against him," will 
find no delight in his triumph, but will be 
filled with " shame.' ' Paul's is the right con- 
clusion when he says, "So then every one of 
us shall give account of himself to God." 
This is what is indicated by the 1 ' Universal- 
ism" of the prophet and the apostle, and 
it is the only true application of these in- 
structive Scriptures. 

Of precisely the same import is the follow- 
ing, 2 Cor. v, 10: "For we must all appear 
before the judgment seat of Christ; that every 
one may receive the things done in his body, 
according to that he hath done, whether it be 
good or bad." In the connection, the apos- 
tle describes two conditions, that of the liv- 
ing and of the dead. To be "absent from 
the body and present with the Lord," repre- 
sents the condition of the dead; while to be 
"at home in the body and absent from the 
Lord," is the state of the living. Then the 
two words, "present" and "absent," denote 

the living and the dead. These include all, 
16 



242 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



and give the true application of the word 
"all" in the verse before us. The apostle 
says, "'Wherefore we labor, that, whether 
present or absent, we may be accepted of 
him. For we must all '' — whether present or 
absent, that is, whether living or dead — "ap- 
pear before the judgment seat of Christ." 
The connective "for" binds the passages to- 
gether, and determines the scope and mean- 
ing of the "all," as well as the pronoun 
"we." The fact comes out unmistakably 
that both the dead and the living must ap- 
pear before the judgment seat; and, although 
the coming of Christ is not mentioned as the 
time of the judgment, it is evidently implied, 
as that is the time when the living and the 
dead meet together, and the thought is nec- 
essary to bring the passage into harmony 
with other Scriptures which so positively de- 
clare that he will judge the living and the 
dead at his appearing. 

The passage we next select as teaching a 
general judgment, after death, and implying 
that it is to occur at the coming of Christ, is 
one which has given great trouble to Univer- 
salists and others who accept the Scriptures, 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 



243 



and yet deny the future judgment, with its 
eternal issues. The importance attached to 
it, and the use that has been made of it will 
justify, or rather require, more than a pass- 
ing notice of its leading points. We refer to 
Heb. ix, 27, 28: "And as it is appointed 
unto men once to die, and after this the judg- 
ment, so Christ was once offered to bear the 
sins of many; and unto them that look for 
him shall he appear the second time without 
sin unto salvation." 

Three things are positive; namely, death, 
judgment, and the second coming of Christ. 
As surely as men die and go to judgment, so 
surely Christ was once offered to bear the 
sins of many, and will come the second time. 
Will he come to judgment? So other pas- 
sages affirm, and this one implies. 

But the reader will desire to see how "lib- 
eralists" explain these words, so as to ob- 
viate the doctrine of a judgment after death, 
and we present them the standard exposition. 
The words we quote are but the echo of 
voices that went before, w r hile those who 
follow continue the same strain. It is gener- 
ally accepted as the best that can be given in 



244 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



that interest, and its correctness as a repre- 
sentative interpretation will not be questioned. 
It runs thus: 

"The apostle is here contrasting the legal 
dispensation and the priesthood of Aaron, 
with its rites and ceremonies and offices, with 
the Christian dispensation and priesthood of 
Christ. Hence he has no reference to the 
future state at all. And the death here 
spoken of has no reference to a natural death. 
But it has reference to the death which the 
priest under the law figuratively died in the 
sacrifice or atonement which he made for the 
people. It was customary for the priest, 
once a year, to enter into the holy of holies 
to make atonement for the whole house of 
Israel. And when he entered this place he 
bore on his breast the breastplate of judg- 
ment, which had inscribed in it the names of 
the twelve tribes of Israel. On the border 
of his garment were little bells. After he 
had made the atonement and the sacrifice was 
accepted, then came the decision or judg- 
ment. To make known to the people that 
the atonement was made, and the sacrifice 
accepted, and the high-priest yet lived, he 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 245 



gave a sound with the bells on the border of 
his garment, and, on hearing it, the whole 
camp of Israel gave a shout of joy. Now 
this atonement was a type of the general 
atonement, which was made by Jesus Christ 
for the sins of the whole world. So says the 
apostle here: 'And as it is appointed unto 
men once to die, and after this the judgment. * 
As it is appointed unto men once to die under 
the figure of sacrifice, referring to the atone- 
ment made by the high-priest, and after this 
the decision, so Christ was once offered for the 
sins of the whole world, and thus, as it was 
with the high-priest, it shall be announced 
that the sacrifice is accepted, the atonement 
made for the sins of the whole world, and 
Jesus Christ the High-priest still lives to make 
intercession for us." 

Here is a strange mingling of type and 
antitype, of things that are compared and 
things that are contrasted. But Ave look only 
at the substance. There are in this state- 
ment three assumptions which, if they be not 
sustained, will stand as confessions that the 
language of the apostle is out of harmony 
with any system that denies judgment after 



246 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



death. They are, i. That the death men- 
tioned is "not a natural death;" 2. That it 
is the figurative death of the high-priest in 
the sacrifice or atonement ; 3. That the "judg- 
ment" means the "decision" made with ref- 
erence to the sacrifice. 

If the first assumption be true, it will fol- 
low that the apostle meant the high-priest 
alone when he said "men," and this is the 
understanding of those who adopt this expo- 
sition, as may be seen by the next assump- 
tion ; and, we may add, that the only serious 
attempt to support this interpretation is found 
in the critical labor put forth to restrict the 
word "men" to "priest." Learned disqui- 
sitions have been written to this end, the 
substance of which is, that, in the original, 
the article precedes the noun, and, if trans- 
lated, the expression, "the men," would oc- 
cur, which would indicate a class, meaning 
the priests. The criticism is too puerile to 
spend a thought upon, were it not that it is 
made the basis of a grave interpretation, 
which becomes a turning-point with many, in 
the discussion of a doctrine of unspeakable 
importance. No reason can be given why the 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 247 



apostle should here use the general expres- 
sion, tots anthropois, if he meant only the high- 
priest, who officiated in the holy of holies. 
He could have said priest just as easily, and 
doubtless would have done so, if he had 
meant the priest. But our learned critics, 
who see so much force in the article, and see 
nothing in "men" but priests, overlook the 
plural form of the word, and forget that but 
one high-priest officiated in the service in 
question. Besides, there is no authority for 
the claim that the article limits the word 
"men" to a particular class. The article is 
translated or not, just as the English idiom 
requires. The translator ascertains the thought 
in the original, and expresses it in good lan- 
guage, rendering all the connectives and par- 
ticles necessary to the sense, and nothing 
more. This is done in the present instance, 
and well done, so that the pretense that the 
translation is imperfect is the sheerest assump- 
tion. The word rendered "die" expresses 
the dissolution of the body, the extinction of 
life, the act of becoming putrescent ; and the 
word rendered "appointed" denotes a judi- 
cial appointment or sentence, while the word 



248 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



"once" fixes the thought upon the common 
notion of a death which can not be repeated. 

The second assumption is contrary to the 
facts in the case. It is not true that the high- 
priest figuratively died in the sacrifice he 
offered. In approaching into the presence of 
God, in the holy of holies, he was liable to 
lose his life, literally, through impropriety of 
conduct or defect in his services, and on that 
account the sign was given by the bells on 
the border of his garment, that the people 
might know that the offering was accepted 
and he still lived ; but in no part of the serv- 
ice did he figuratively die for the people. 
The victim which he offered in sacrifice died 
literally, and that typified Christ's death, and 
took place outside of the holy of holies ; but 
there was no dying for the people to be ac- 
complished within the second veil. That 
place was the type of heaven, into which 
Christ hath entered for us, where he ever 
liveth to make intercession for us, and where 
he is to remain till the time appointed to ren- 
der the decisions of the judgment-day. If our 
critics really desired to be scrupulously exact 
in rendering this typical service in its relation 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 



249 



to the great high-priest, they should have 
added to their definition of the judgment as 
the decision pronounced by the high-priest 
upon his return from the holy of holies, that 
Jesus Christ will also return from heaven it- 
self, and that his return will likewise be an 
hour for decision or judgment. 

But, even if it were possible to regard the 
service of the high-priest in the holy of holies 
as a figurative death, it would be untrue to 
assert that it was appointed to take place but 
" once." This whole service was performed, 
not only more than "once" during the Aaronic 
priesthood, but more than " once " within the 
official term of a single priest. It took place 
"once every year." It was the very service 
which differed from the priestly work of 
Christ, and was inferior to it in this respect, 
as much as in others, that it must be repeated 
year after year continually. 

The death of Christ was contrasted with the 
offerings of the high-priests under the law, in 
that he suffered "once," while they offered 
their sacrifices "often." But his death, or 
offering for sin, which was once for all, never 
to be repeated, is not contrasted with that 



250 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



death which is "appointed unto men," in the 
Scripture before us, but compared with it in 
this particular, that it occurs but "once." 
As men die once, so he suffered once. This 
is the emphatic point in the argument. "Nor 
yet that he should offer himself often, as the 
high-priest entereth into the holy place every 
year with blood of others ; for then must 
he often have suffered since the foundation of 
the world ; but now once in the end of the 
world hath he appeared to put away sin by 
the sacrifice of himself. And as it is ap- 
pointed unto men once to die, but after this 
the judgment, so Christ was once offered to 
bear the sins of many." Thus it appears 
that Christ's death was not "as the high-priest 
entered into the holy place and died figura- 
tively," for that was "often;" but it was as 
men die — once, and only once. It seems im- 
possible to imagine a plainer contradiction 
than exists between the apostle's argument 
in this connection and the "exposition," 
which is made a chief corner-stone in the 
fabric of Universalism. 

In regard to the third assumption men- 
tioned, we need only remark that if the word 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 



" judgment " means "decision " — and in every 
act of judgment there is a decision implied — 
it is a decision which is to be announced after 
death, according to our works ; a decision the 
high-priest of our profession shall render after 
his intercession is over, when he comes back 
from the holy place, or when he "appears 
the second time without sin unto salvation." 
It is a decision that shall be final, fixing hu- 
man destiny judicially, as human conduct will 
have fixed it morally before that day. But, 
that it relates to the acceptance of the sacri- 
fice of Christ, except it be as to the actual 
result of that sacrifice in the salvation of those 
who avail themselves of it, is unsupported by 
any evidence, and is positively untrue. The 
resurrection of Christ proved the acceptance 
of his offering, and that before he ascended 
to the holy place not made with hands. It 
is the word which is generally rendered 
"judgment," and in this place points to an 
appointed day of revelation and decision after 
death, too plainly to be misunderstood. And 
if it be true that this passage relates to literal 
death and to the judgment beyond, it simply 
falls into line with the uniform teaching of 



252 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the Scriptures, and recognizes the fact that 
Jesus Christ is ''ordained of God to be the 
judge of the quick and dead." 

Several other Scriptures which teach a 
judgment after death, and closely related to 
the second coming of Christ, must be dis- 
missed with a hasty glance. Several passages 
speak of those long dead as appearing in 
judgment. "Then began he to upbraid the 
cities wherein most of his mighty works were 
done, because they repented not : woe unto 
thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! 
for if the mighty works, which were done in 
you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they 
would have repented long ago in sackcloth 
and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be 
more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day 
of judgment, than for you. And thou, Ca- 
pernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt 
be brought down to hell : for if the mighty 
works, which have been done in thee, had 
been done in Sodom, it would have remained 
until this day. But I say unto you, That it 
shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom 
in the day of judgment, than for thee." 
(Matt, xi, 20-24.) This can not mean that 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 253 



it will be less " tolerable for Chorazin, Betlv 
saida, and Capernaum in the days of their 
calamity than it was for Tyre, Sid on, and So- 
dom" in the days of their overthrow. The 
language points to a future "day of judg- 
ment," in which all shall be dealt with; and 
it shall then be more tolerable for the inhab- 
itants of these cities than for those who have 
enjoyed superior advantages. There is no 
way of meeting the force of the words with- 
out the idea of a future, general judgment, 
when all past generations, however long dead, 
shall "appear before the judgment-seat of 
Christ." This also accords with the follow- 
ing: "And whosoever shall not receive you, 
nor hear your words, when ye depart out of 
that house or city, shake off the dust of your 
feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more 
tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah 
in the day of judgment, than for that city." 
(Matt, x, 14, 15.) And the same view of 
the coming judgment is necessary to explain 
the following: "The men of Nineveh shall 
rise in the judgment with this generation, and 
shall condemn it : because they repented at 
the preaching of Jonas ; and, behold, a greater 



254 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



than Jonas is here. The queen of the south 
shall rise up in the judgment with this gene- 
ration, and shall condemn it : for she came 
from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear 
the wisdom of Solomon ; and, behold, a 
greater than Solomon is here." (Matt, xii, 
41, 42.) These Scriptures point distinctly to 
a future judgment-day, when those of past 
generations " shall rise up in the judgment." 
No criticism has ever broken the force of 
this language, and we have no apprehension 
that it ever will be broken. 

To the same effect is the argument of the 
Apostle Peter, as follows : " For if God spared 
not the angels that sinned, but cast them 
down to hell {Tartarus) and delivered them 
into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto 
judgment ; and spared not the old world, but 
saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of 
righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the 
world of the ungodly; and, turning the cities 
of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, con- 
demned them with an overthrow, making 
them an ensample unto those that after should 
live ungodly ; and delivered just Lot, vexed 
with the filthy conversation of the wicked : 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 



255 



(for that righteous man dwelling among them, 
in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous 
soul from day to day with their unlawful 
deeds :) the Lord knoweth how to deliver the 
godly out of temptations, and to reserve the 
unjust unto the day of judgment to be pun- 
ished." (2 Peter ii, 4-9.-) In this we must 
note that "the angels that sinned" are not 
finally judged, but they are in tartarus, "re- 
served unto judgment." So, also, with the 
ungodly of the old world and of the demol- 
ished cities. They are "reserved unto the 
day of judgment to be punished." What the 
Lord has done with these and with Noah and 
Lot proves that he ' 'knows how" to deliver 
the godly, and to reserve or keep in custody 
the unjust unto the day of judgment. The 
word "reserved" is used with reference to 
the angels that are in tartams, and with refer- 
ence to the ungodly dead of past generations, 
and, in the next chapter, with reference to 
the "heavens and earth which are now kept 
in store, reserved unto fire against the day of 
judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 
These are all " reserved unto judgment" — 
"reserved unto the day of judgment;" "re- 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



served unto fire against the day of judgment." 
The judgment is undoubtedly the same, and 
it is yet future as certainly as that the world 
is not yet burned up. Nothing but the fu- 
ture general judgment at "the day of the 
Lord," when he " shall come as a thief in the 
night," will meet the conditions of this argu- 
ment, or account for the terms employed. 
Of these same characters the Apostle Jude 
speaks, when he tells us that Enoch, the sev- 
enth from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Be- 
hold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of 
his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and 
to convince all that are ungodly," etc. Evi- 
dently, Jude believed in the future judgment, 
as Peter did, and that it will take place when 
"the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his 
saints." 

An important testimony, which we can 
barely mention, is Rev. xi, 18 : "And the na- 
tions were angry, and thy wrath is come, 
and the time of the dead, that they should be 
judged, and that thou shouldest give reward 
unto thy servants the prophets, and to the 
saints, and them that fear thy name, small 
and great ; and shouldest destroy them which 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 



257 



destroy the earth," When was this ? It was, 
as the connection shows, a scene laid under 
the sounding of the seventh angel, which is 
the "last trumpet." It was at an epoch in 
the world's history, which can not be easily 
misunderstood; for it was when "there were 
great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms 
of this world are become the kingdoms of our 
Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign 
forever and ever." It was at the close of the 
mediatorial reign, when all the concurrent 
voices of the Scripture proclaim the end of 
time and the coming of the Lord Jesus, to 
raise the dead and judge the world in right- 
eousness. This recognition of the judgment 
under the seventh trumpet is clear and posi- 
tive ; and yet the vision was suspended till 
another series was introduced, which ran over 
the Gospel age from the beginning to the end, 
when the same judgment scene was again 
brought out with greater fullness, in connec- 
tion with the appearance of "the great white 
throne," which synchronizes with the coming 
of Christ, when he shall 1 ' sit upon the throne 
of his glory." This fuller picture of the judg- 
ment, in the resurrection of the dead, is in 

17 



2 5 8 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Rev. xx, 1 1— 1 5 : "And I saw a great white 
throne, and him that sat on it, from whose 
face the earth and the heaven fled away; and 
there was found no place for them. And I 
saw the dead, small and great, stand before 
God ; and the books were opened : and an- 
other book was opened, which is the book of 
life : and the dead were judged out of those 
things which were written in the books, ac- 
cording to their works. And the sea gave 
up the dead which were in it ; and death and 
hell delivered up the dead which were in 
them : and they were judged every man ac- 
cording to their works. And death and hell 
were cast into the lake of fire. This is the 
second death. And whosoever was not found * 
written in the book of life was cast into the 
lake of fire." But, having otherwhere noted 
the bearing of this Scripture on the doctrine 
of the advent and the judgment, it is only 
important to remind the reader that the pic- 
ture of the judgment in these two places is 
the same ; and that the righteous, as well as 
the wicked, are to be the subjects of it. This 
is implied in the opening of the "book of 
life," and even more positively set forth in 



JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH. 



259 



the first passage, where it is said so plainly, 
4 'And the time of the dead, that they should 
be judged, and that thou shouldest give re- 
ward unto thy servants tJie prvpliets, and to the 
saints, and them that fear thy name y small and 
great" This effectually disposes of the pre- 
millennialist assumption that all the righteous 
will have been rewarded, and that only the 
wicked will appear in the judgment at the 
great day. Each passage seems to be a two- 
edged sword, cleaving asunder the two oppo- 
site doctrines necessarily antagonized in this 
argument. Neither those who deny all judg- 
ment at the end of time, nor those who hold 
that the "prophets" and "saints" and them 
that fear God, "small and great," shall have 
been raised and rewarded, and reigned on the 
earth with Christ a thousand years before the 
time of the judgment, can find any particle 
of support in these Scriptures, or any ground 
to place a foot upon. The testimony is over- 
whelming in favor of a future, general resur- 
rection, and a judgment of universal humanity. 



260 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



Chapter XVI. 

THE CONFLAGRATION. 

THE coming of Christ and the "day of 
the Lord " are identical in point of time. 
This fact requires that we study the Apostle 
Peter's description of the "day of the Lord" 
in this connection. 

As we have already seen that the coming 
of Christ and the day of judgment are con- 
nected, so here we find that "the day of the 
Lord," which " cometh as a thief in the 
night," is the "day of judgment and perdi- 
tion of ungodly men." There is, perhaps, no 
doctrine more dreaded by men of "liberal" 
tendencies in religious thought than that there 
shall be a general judgment at the end of 
time, when all the human race shall be as- 
sembled and rewarded according to the deeds 
done in the body. It is too serious a subject 
to be treated lightly; yet multitudes, upon 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 



261 



the slightest examination of the theories of 
Unitarians and Universalists, hasten to pro- 
nounce the orthodox teaching exploded. 

In this chapter we invite attention to an 
argument that ought to be decisive, and we 
put it forth, believing that when it is devel- 
oped it will carry conviction to every unbiased 
mind, leading directly to the belief in the fu- 
ture judgment, with all its momentous reali- 
ties. This argument is found in the fact that 
in "the day of the Lord," which is the day 
of judgment, this world is to be burned up. If 
this be a fact, there is no possibility that the 
day of judgment is past, or even now in pro- 
gress. It must, in the nature of things, be 
at "the last day" — at the end of the age — 
as the Savior so distinctly declared it would be. 

The burning up of this world, if it be lit- 
erally understood, can not take place till the 
close of time, and, if we find it connected 
with the judgment as one of the incidents of 
the day of the Lord, it will follow that the 
judgment is subsequent to the Gospel day. 
The Scriptures teach that when the Gospel 
dispensation closes, and the Lord descends 
from heaven and calls the dead from their 



262 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



graves, the visible earth and heaven shall be 
destroyed by fire, and afterward be renewed 
in righteousness. We accept this statement 
as pointing to a literal fact, and propose to 
test it in the light of the criticisms and objec- 
tions offered by the cpposers of the doctrine 
of a literal advent and future judgment. With- 
out transcribing the passage, we rely upon 
2 Peter iii, 1-14. 

We freely concede that if this passage does 
not point to a literal conflagration, there is 
nothing in the Bible that does. On the other 
hand, we claim that if this teaches such a con- 
flagration, there are many other Scriptures 
which allude to it, and imply what this clearly 
expresses. 

All who deny a future judgment find it 
necessary to deny the literal sense of this 
Scripture, and resort to a figurative interpre- 
tation in order to dispose of it, applying the 
whole chapter to the destruction of Jerusalem 
and the passing away of the Jewish polity and 
dispensation. In support of this interpreta- 
tion appeal is made to the prophecies of the 
Old Testament, wherein revolutions of States 
are described in language similar to that em- 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 



263 



ployed by Peter in this chapter. We notice 
the principal passages of this class, the ones 
relied upon to sustain the figurative inter- 
pretation. 

Among the most prominent is Isaiah xxxiv, 
4 : ' 'And all the host of heaven shall be dis- 
solved, and the heavens shall be rolled to- 
gether as a scroll ; and all their host shall fall 
down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and 
as a falling" fig from the fig-tree." It is true 
that this language bears some resemblance to 
that of Peter, although its figurative charac- 
ter is much more apparent, and the applica- 
tion of it much more positively demands that 
it be so understood. Nor is it by any means 
clear that the prophet did not ultimately 
allude to the scenes of the last day — the very 
events which formed the topic of discourse 
with the apostle. Many of the prophecies 
have a twofold meaning or a literal and a fig- 
urative application. Here the first application 
is to God's judgments upon Idumea; but the 
imagery is borrowed from the breaking up of 
the order of the visible creation, the very 
catastrophe that Peter minutely describes ; 
and if the application of the language to the 



264 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



final dissolution be objected to on the ground 
that it is impossible that the heavens be liter- 
ally " rolled together as a scroll," the answer 
is, that this is a figurative representation of 
the ease with which the Almighty w r ill accom- 
plish his purpose when the time arrives for 
cutting asunder the tie that so mysteriously 
holds together the mighty fabric. The con- 
text indicates that this visitation from the 
Lord upon the land of Idumea was but a 
type of the day of vengeance, when all na- 
tions will be interested in the judgments re- 
vealed. 

Another passage of this class, to which 
reference is sometimes made, is Ezekiel xxxii, 
1: "And when I shall put thee out, I will 
cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof 
dark ; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and 
the moon shall not give her light." But this 
language has nothing like the force of that 
which Peter employs. It is figurative and 
impressive in its application, but not nearly 
so vigorous as that just considered from Isaiah. 
To "cover the sun with a cloud" is nothing 
uncommon, and the same means will hide the 
light of the moon and the stars. The imagery 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 



265 



is taken from a dismal day and night when 
the clouds prevail. In this language Ezekiel 
described the overthrow of the Egyptian king 
and the desolation of the country by a pow- 
erful enemy. The picture falls infinitely short 
in comparison with Peter's sublime descrip- 
tion of the ''day of the Lord." 

Our attention is likewise called to Joel ii, 
10: "The earth shall quake before them; 
the heavens shall tremble ; the sun and moon 
shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw 
their shining." The topic is the utter desola- 
tion of the land of Israel. The allusion is to 
a frightful storm, when the thunder shakes 
the earth and heaven, and the gathering 
clouds bring darkness ; but the imagery falls 
below the idea presented by Peter. There is 
nothing here like the melting of the elements 

o o 

with fervent heat and the burning up of the 
earth. 

The following is quoted w T ith great confi- 
dence, and deserves special attention: "And 
it shall come to pass afterward, that I will 
pour out my Spirit upon all flesh ; and your 
sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your 
old men shall dream dreams, your young men 



266 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



shall see visions : and also upon the servants and 
upon the handmaids in those days will I pour 
out my Spirit. And I will shew wonders in the 
heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and 
pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned 
into darkness, and the moon into blood, be- 
fore the great and the terrible day of the Lord 
come." (Joel ii, 28-30.) The Apostle Pe- 
ter quoted this on the day of Pentecost, to 
show that the outpouring of the Spirit pre- 
dicted was then fulfilled ; but he did not 
assert or intimate that every thing in the 
prophecy was so fulfilled as to restrict its ap- 
plication to the events of that day. The 
manifestation of the Spirit marked the begin- 
ning of the Gospel age, and characterizes the 
whole period of the Christian dispensation so 
that this prophecy applies to the day in which 
we live, as well as. to the day of Pentecost; 
then, why may not the latter part of the pass- 
age, which gives the signs of the coming of 
"the great and terrible day of the Lord," re- 
late to the signs of the termination of the dis- 
pensation of the Spirit? This joining of the 
beginning and ending of the dispensation in 
a single passage is not contrary to the usage 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 



267 



of the prophets, nor without illustration in the 
discourses of our Lord himself. As we have 
seen, he speaks of his coming "in the glory 
of the Father with the holy angels/' and then 
immediately, as if with the next breath, he 
mentions his coming "in his kingdom" — 
events which are separated by the whole pe- 
riod of the Gospel dispensation. There is no 
reason why we may not apply this prediction 
of the outpouring of the Spirit to the whole 
of the dispensation which it distinguishes, 
while there are substantial reasons for so ap- 
plying it ; and, if we do so apply it, we are 
shut up to the necessity of understanding the 
"wonders in the heavens and in the earth," 
as relating to something that shall mark the 
winding up of the Gospel period and the ap- 
proach of the ' ' great and terrible day of the 
Lord" — the very day which is elsewhere 
called "the day of judgment and perdition 
of ungodly men." 

Some think that Peter Regarded the whole 
prophecy as fulfilled when he quoted it ; but 
this can not be maintained. He asserted 
nothing of the kind. He did not affirm that 
God had already shown wonders in the 



268 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



heavens and the earth, " blood, and fire, and 
pillars of smoke." He did not claim that the 
sun had already been "turned into darkness 
and the moon into blood." Nor did he rep- 
resent the day of Pentecost as "the great 
and terrible day of the Lord." He only 
assured the people that so much of the proph- 
ecy as related to the gift of the Spirit was 
fulfilled, without making any application of 
the other parts of it. Nor do the opposers 
of the future judgment themselves believe 
that all these "wonders" had appeared at 
that time ; much less do they suppose that 
Peter, in his epistle, meant the day of Pente- 
cost, when he spoke of the "day of the 
Lord." On the contrary, they regard this 
part of the prophecy, as also the language of 
Peter, as descriptive of the destruction of Je- 
rusalem forty years after the end of the Jew- 
ish dispensation and the opening of the Gospel 
era. Moreover, these "wonders" are not 
characteristic of "the great and terrible day 
of the Lord," but, according to the prophecy, 
they must precede the coming of that day. 
These signs and wonders are to herald its 
approach. Hence, if it were conceded that 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 269 



Joel described only the beginning of the Gos- 
pel dispensation and the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, this would be no proof that Peter, in 
his epistle, spoke of the same thing ; for Joel 
spoke of what should take place "before the 
great and terrible day of the Lord come/' 
while Peter, in the chapter in question, speaks 
of "the day of the Lord" itself and of the 
results of its coming. 

But, in addition to all this, we wish to 
mark the difference between the language of 
the Old Testament prophecies and that of the 
Apostle Peter, still more specifically. And 
let it be borne in mind that in not one of the 
passages cited from the Old Testament is the 
complete destruction of the world spoken of 
or the agency of fire alluded to. They men- 
tion the obscuring of the light of the sun and 
moon, the falling down of the stars, and the 
rolling together of the heavens, but always in 
such a way as to leave no doubt in the mind 
of the reader as to the figurative character of 
the language employed. But Peter says noth- 
ing of the obscuring of the light, nor does he 
mention the rolling together of the heavens 
or the falling of the stars, but speaks plainly 



270 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



of the burning up of the earth and the works 
therein, and specifies the agent that shall ac- 
complish this result. His description is too 
elaborate and too full of particulars to be 
taken as a rhetorical flourish. There is also 
an absurdity in taking the language of the 
Old Testament literally, because there is no 
possibility of the things mentioned being done 
literally. The heavens can not be rolled to- 
gether as a scroll. But in the literal inter- 
pretation of the apostle's language there is no 
such absurdity involved. Every thing men- 
tioned by him may be done literally, and not 
a single philosophical difficulty be encoun- 
tered. The burning up of the earth, the pass- 
ing away of the atmospheric heavens with a 
great noise, and the melting of the elements 
with fervent heat, are all things possible, and 
may be done literally: and, if done, the phe- 
nomena attending the scene, as suggested by 
the apostle, correspond in every particular 
with what the highest authorities in science 
will affirm to be the necessary accompani- 
ments of the conflagration. Science can not 
deny the possibility of a single item in the 
apostolic representation, and learned men 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 



271 



have often been impressed, upon purely sci- 
entific grounds, that preparation for some 
such event is manifest in every department 
of physical nature. Earth, air, and sea are 
full of the materials for such a consummation, 
so that the slightest readjustment of the elec- 
trical forces, or disturbance of the component 
properties of the elements, will prove suffi- 
cient to unchain the fire that lurks in readi- 
ness for the coming day. Then, if the proph- 
ets did sometimes allude to the last day, and 
borrow imagery therefrom, to give impressive 
expression to the calamities about to fall 
upon the countries of which they prophesied, 
this fact ought to raise a presumption that 
later inspirations would unfold more fully the 
scene so darkly shadowed to them and so im- 
perfectly understood ; and, instead of their 
figurative language being a reason for restrict- 
ing the apostle's utterances to the significance 
of what they said, the reasons are strong for 
looking beyond all local applications of their 
prophecies to the final source of their boldest 
imagery, for the import of that which he so 
plainly affirmed belonged to "the day of the 
Lord." Their language must be interpreted 



272 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



figuratively in any application made of it; 
but, since Peter's language is later than theirs, 
and less rhetorical, and so strictly accurate as 
to encounter no absurdity, contradiction, or 
philosophical or scientific difficulty in its lit- 
eral interpretation, there is no necessity for 
resorting to figurative interpretations or far- 
fetched and forced applications in order to 
explain it. There is, indeed, no reason, either 
in the nature of his language or in the nature 
of the event described, for giving to his words 
any other than their plainest and most literal 
meaning. 

But we shall not stop here. There are 
positive reasons found in the language in 
question why we dare not apply the apostle's 
description of "the day of the Lord" as a 
figurative description of the calamities coming 
on the Jewish nation — reasons that can not 
be overcome by sober criticism, much less 
pushed aside by confident assertion. 

1. The apostle urged the coming of the 
day of God and the dissolution contemplated 
as a motive to piety and diligence on the part 
of all to whom he wrote, intimating that they 
would be personally interested in the pro- 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 273 



ceedings of that day. " Wherefore, beloved, 
seeing that ye look for such things, be dili- 
gent, that ye may be found of him in peace, 
without spot and blameless." But this epis- 
tle was not written to Jews alone, nor to 
Christians dwelling in Judea only, but to the 
Churches in general, and was addressed to 
44 strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Ga- 
latia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." If 
the apostle wrote these things only of the de- 
struction of Jerusalem or the subversion of 
the Jewish polity, such an appeal to "stran- 
gers" scattered throughout all those countries 
seems unaccountable, and we hazard nothing 
in pronouncing it inappropriate, if not pre- 
posterous. 

2. The coming of "the day of the Lord," 
here mentioned, was to be a very sudden and 
unexpected event — "as a thief in the night." 
In this respect it corresponds with what 
Christ so often said of his second coming. 
The words were evidently borrowed from his 
discourses, and applied by Peter to what he 
understood to be the same event. The com- 
ing of the day of the Lord, and the coming 
of the Lord himself, are identical as to time, 

18 



274 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



so that the one means the other, or implies 
it. But the overthrow of the Jewish nation 
and the destruction of Jerusalem were neither 
sudden events nor unanticipated. The great 
storm of wrath which brought such disaster 
did not burst upon them unexpectedly. It 
had been foretold by the Lord and the apos- 
tles, and w T as indicated by the dissensions 
and tumults with which the Jews w r ere ex- 
hausting their strength, while the hostile atti- 
tude and preparation of their enemies fore- 
shadowed the result. All their surroundings 
pointed to the fall of the city as inevitable. 
And, after the war began, so far from its hor- 
rors coming suddenly, "like a thief in the 
night," the conflict was protracted from month 
to month, until by war, famine, pestilence, 
and faction the obstinate Jews were reduced 
to desperation, and finally brought under the 
power of the Romans,, and subjected to their 
dreaded doom. 

3. The apostle's refutation of the "scoff- 
ers" mentioned proves that he had a literal 
conflagration in mind. These "scoffers" as- 
sumed that Christ had promised to come 
again speedily, and destroy the earth and 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 



275 



punish the disobedient, and they thought 
that delay proved his promise false. Find- 
ing nothing like an interruption of the course 
of nature, which they understood to be con- 
nected with the promised advent, they deri- 
sively asked, " Where is the promise of his 
coming? for, since the fathers fell asleep, all 
things continue as they were from the begin- 
ning of the creation." They denied the truth- 
fulness of the ' 'promise," because the world 
was not destroyed, showing that it was the 
popular belief that the destruction of the 
world was connected w r ith the coming again. 
If Peter had understood the matter as do our 
modern " figurative" interpreters, who deny 
the future advent and judgment, and discard 
the literal burning of the earth, he would have 
answered these 1 ' scoffers" in quite a different 
strain. He would have explained to them 
their mistake, showing them that Christ's 
promised coming had nothing to do with the 
destruction of the world ; that the established 
order of the creation was not to be interrupted; 
that the "end of the world" did not mean 
what they supposed it did, but only the clos- 
ing up of the Jewish dispensation ; and that 



276 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



the subversion of the order of things connected 
with it should be interpreted as a "figura- 
tive" setting forth of the destruction of Jeru- 
salem by the Roman army ! But he did 
nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he 
vindicated the "promise " which these "scoff- 
ers" assailed, on the ground of the "long 
suffering of the Lord," in the first place, and 
then on the ground that time with the Lord 
is not as it is with us — "For one day is with 
the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand 
years as one day." The entire scope of his 
argument shows that the apostle never in- 
tended to correct the prevailing impression 
that the coming of Christ, the day of judg- 
ment, and the destruction of the world were 
all connected in point of time. He pointed 
to the destruction of the old world by water, 
charging the false teachers with being "will- 
ingly ignorant " of that literal fact, and made 
it a proof and an example of the destruction 
of the same world by fire at the "day of judg- 
ment and perdition of ungodly men." The 
allusion to the flood would have been inappro- 
priate, if he intended to teach any thing other 
than a literal destruction of the world by fire. 



THE CONFLAGRATION, 



277 



Some have thought that the apostle had 
modern Universalists in mind when he de- 
scribed the " scoffers' 5 who denied the Second 
Coming of Christ. It is true that the false 
teachers intended, were not those of his day, 
but some that should "come in the last days," 
and in this respect the language might fit any 
who, at the present time, deny the Coming 
of Christ, the day of judgment, and the de- 
struction of the world; but there are evi- 
dently some particulars in which these "scoff- 
ers" differed from Universalists. They denied 
the Second Coming of Christ to judgment 
very much as Universalists and other "lib- 
eralists" do, but they had no figurative 
method of interpreting the promise to come 
again, so far as we can see; and then they 
did, as Universalists do not, connect the com- 
ing to judgment with the destruction of the 
world. For this they were not reproved; 
but, while they understood the nature of the 
promise, and saw what it contemplated, they 
denied its truthfulness, because they saw the 
course of nature uninterrupted. Universal- 
ists, like these "scoffers," do contemptuously 
inquire, "Where is the promise of his com- 



278 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



ing?" and, although they base their skepti- 
cism on different grounds, it can not be ques- 
tioned that their vehement opposition to the 
literal teaching of this chapter, allies them 
very closely, in spirit at least, with those 
whom the apostle describes as "scoffers." 

4. The apostle's comparison between the 
former destruction of the world by water, 
and its future destruction by fire, proves that 
one event is as literal as the other. It is a 
literal fact that the old world perished by 
water; it is a literal fact that the heavens and 
earth which are now, are kept in store or 
treasured up so as not to be destroyed by 
another deluge; and it is a literal fact, if 
there is any established meaning in language, 
that this same world, which is kept "standing 
out of the water and in the water," is "re- 
served unto fire against the day of judgment 
and perdition of ungodly men." This is the 
apostle's most unequivocal assertion. He 
spoke of the old world literally, of the 
heavens and earth which are now literally, 
of the water literally, and consequently of 
the fire literally. His argument may be put 
thus: "If the old world was overwhelmed 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 279 



with water literally, so that the inhabitants 
were drowned, the works of men destroyed, 
and the world perished, then, no less literally, 
must we expect that, when the day of judg- 
ment comes, this present world, now stand- 
ing out of the water and in the water, shall 
be destroyed, not again by water, but by the 
agency of fire. " The objection is, that the 
old world did not perish by water — that is, 
the material structure, the globe, the earth, 
remained, and was repeopled after the flood. 
This is true ; nevertheless, the flood was lit- 
eral, and the surface of the earth was sub- 
merged, and underwent such a transformation 
that the language which describes it as per- 
ishing is not too strong. And so we expect 
the globe to survive the fiery ordeal awaiting 
it, to be reconstructed, and to begin a new 
career of order and beauty, that shall surpass 
all the experiences of its past history. 

5. The prediction of the new creation, 
which is to follow the conflagration, corrob- 
orates the view we have taken of the literal 
destruction by fire. " Nevertheless, we, ac- 
cording to his promise, look for new heavens 
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous- 



280 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



ness." The state of things which followed 
the destruction of Jerusalem, if we have any 
knowledge of the facts, or any conception of 
the meaning of words, can not possibly be 
taken as the "new heavens and new earth, 
wherein dwelleth righteousness.' ' The dis- 
order and general profligacy that ensued were 
rather proofs of moral degeneracy. But our 
figurative interpreters will tell us that the old 
world which passed away w r as Judaism, and 
that the "new heavens and earth" were the 
Gospel economy. But the Gospel economy 
came in long before Jerusalem was destroyed. 
Its morning beams poured floods of light 
upon the waiting Church on the Pentecost 
after the resurrection of Christ, and its bright- 
est rays cheered the apostles in their personal 
toils, while the temple and city were yet 
standing, and while the nation was yet at 
peace. Then, if the Gospel kingdom is the 
new heavens and earth, the new creation pre- 
ceded the fiery visitation that took away the 
old. Sober-minded thinkers can not allow 
this preposterous assumption. The order of 
events is too plainly set forth in this chapter 
to admit of any such perversion of the truth, 



THE CONFLAGRATION. 281 



except it be by those who are "willingly 
ignorant ;" and it was not without foresight 
of special occasion that this solemn discourse 
on the judgment was immediately followed 
by a warning against those who " wrest the 
Scriptures to their own destruction." 

We now submit that it is as clear as any 
thing need be, that this grand description of 
the solemnities of "the day of the Lord" 
can not be taken "figuratively" to represent 
the violent overthrow of Judaism, and the 
subsequent establishment of Christianity, as a 
new creation, in its stead. The language 
does not require that interpretation, and will 
not bear such an application. The scope of 
the argument forbids any such meaning, and 
all the conditions of the case require that we 
accept the apostle's statement concerning the 
coming of the day of judgment, including 
the burning up of the earth and the works 
therein, in the literal sense, without any of 
the speculative refinements of modern "lib- 
eralism." Such w r as the faith of the early 
Church, and such has been the faith of the 
followers of Christ through all the centuries, 
while only " scoffers' ' ridicule it, sneeringly 



282 



SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 



asking, " Where is the promise of his com- 
ing?" But, despite the scoffs of infidelity, and 
the sneers and sophistries of "liberalists," 
the doctrine of the future coming of Christ, 
and that of a future judgment, rest upon the 
sure foundation of the infallible Word, and 
one of the sublime incidents of that " great 
and terrible day" will be the conflagration 
of the sublunary world. Nature and revela- 
tion point to this coming fiery ordeal. The 
earth w r as " cursed for man's sake." It bears 
its thorns and briers, and sends forth its nox- 
ious exhalations, fairly groaning beneath the 
load of sin that presses upon its bosom. It 
travails in pain for deliverance! And deliv- 
erance will come in the throes of dissolving 
elements, when from the ashes of its purgation 
will spring its renewed form, free from the 
curse, and fitted for the habitation of right- 
eousness. "And I saw a new heaven and a 
new earth, for the first heaven and the first 
earth were passed away; and there was no 
more sea." "And he that sat upon the 
throne said, Behold, I make all things new." 





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